Convert TiVo to Apple TV 3 for playing back

Summary: In this guide, you will learn how to transfer TV shows from TiVo to Apple TV 3 by converting TiVo recordings to iTunes h.264-compliant 1080p videos so that you can stream to play TiVo files on Apple TV 3 as you want with best HD video quality.

The new Apple TV 3 features 1080p programming including iTunes movies and TV shows, Netflix, Vimeo, photos, and more in HD. With iTunes in the Cloud, you can purchase and play favorite movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store and watch them instantly on your HD TV. What’s more, if you have backup lots of TiVo recordings on your PC, you can also stream them all to your Apple TV 3 and watch them as you want. The process isn’t actually that difficult, here I would throw this quick tutorial up on how to enable Apple TV 3 to play recorded TiVo TV shows.

First, the most important piece of the equation is that you have a TiVo converter app hooked to your PC which helps you convert TiVo shows to iTunes h.264-compliant videos for Apple TV 3 streaming. If you looking for an easy to use, and want to keep the original HD quality, I’ve had success using Pavtube’s Video Converter to convert TiVo to a foramt playable by Apple TV 3 and iTunes. I’ve found the quality to be excellet, and see no difference when compared to playing the TiVo shows themselves. It works very well and I haven’t really had any problems. Conversion speed seems fine. It’s much better TiVo’s converter. TiVo’s converters for Apple TV 3 are terrible. Below is a brief guide for you.

Part 1: Transfer TV recordings from TiVo box to your PC

To start, please make sure you have installed TiVo Desktop Software on your computer, and your TiVo box is connected to your home network. And you can access the instructions on how to transfer TiVo file to PC from their website.

Part 2: Convert/Transfer TiVo TV shows to Apple TV 3 compatible video format

Note: For Windows users, just follow the detailed guide to finish your work about converting TiVo recording for Apple TV 3. For Mac users, you can follow how to sync TiVo files to Mac iTunes for Apple TV 3 streaming to finish your work on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Mac OS X Mountain Lion(10.8) etc.

1) Asumming you have downloaded the top TiVo Converter for Apple TV 3 to your PC the first step is to add your transferred TV shows into it.

(Notice: When you adding TiVo files into the program for the first time, a popup window will ask you to enter Media Access Key of your TiVo DVR, do as it required, after that, the TiVo recordings will be loading successfully.)

2) Choose output profile for Apple TV 3. The Apple TV 3 Converter offers optimized 1080p preset for the new Apple TV 3rd Generation. All you need do is selecting “Apple TV H.264 1920×1080(*.mp4)” as output format, and leave the rest to the program.

3) Click “Convert” button to start converting HD TiVo files to Apple TV 3 HD 1080p MP4 video.

PS: An AC-3 encoded audio track will also be included in the output videos for Apple TV 3 to pass-through Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, so that it will work in surround sound when Apple TV is connected to audio receiver, and also in stereo when Apple TV is connected with TV only. If there are no AC3 5.1 sound in your source file, Pavtube Apple TV 3 Video Converter will create a 5.1 sound for you, but you can not expect the quality is as good as the real Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

So there you have it. After the conversion completes, you can transfer the result TiVo videos to Mac iTunes Movie Library. Now you start enjoy and stream TiVo shows to play with Apple TV 3 as you want.

If you have other questions, you can go to Apple TV 3 column on Pavtube website, the column has many useful guides, such as watch Blu-ray/DVD through Apple TV 3, HD TiVo/M2TS to Apple TV 3, stream mkv to Apple TV 3 etc.