What is SeasonPassGetter?
SPG takes TiVo content and transfers it to iTunes. Its main purpose was to transfer regularly scheduled recordings (Season Pass on TiVo) for viewing on AppleTV. There was a lot of interest in content for the iPod, so when a show is transferred to iTunes, SPG will initiate an iPod sync. Wake up in the morning and your shows are ready to go. I haven't experimented with many different settings, just the ones I list below.

SeasonPassGetter does NOT require a hacked TiVo running vserver.
SPG works with a Tivo Series 2 out of the box.

FAQ:
Why does the SPG Interface window say “SPG Running” but SPG doesn’t look like it’s doing anything?

The process of starting a transfer can take some time. Possibly 1 to 2 minutes depending on how many shows you have on your TiVo and your connection speed with the TiVo. My system takes about 1 minute to start a transfer. If you want to “see” this, open the Activity Monitor and watch the Network traffic on the Network tab.

This may also be due to the non-Mac like interface. More than likely, the progress window is being hidden behind the SPG Interface window. Progress windows are placed at the far back of all other windows so they don’t interfere with an application in the foreground. It’s best to move the SPG Interface window off to the side so the progress windows can be seen. This will be fixed some time in the future.

Show titles:
If there is no episode title then SPG will use the episode number in the title as well as the show description.

If there is no episode title and no episode number then SPG will use the date the show was captured as the episode title along with the show description.

The reason for this is so that the show presents itself nicely in AppleTV. If you record the daily news which typically does not have any info associated with it, you will find the date as the title.

Encoding in more than one set of preferences:
If you want to have some shows transfered in an iPod format and some better suited for AppleTV or FrontRow, make a separate user account for either format and run SPG in both accounts. BUT, TiVo only allows for one transfer at a time so you’ll have to set the start and stop times so that transfers won’t attempt to overlap. What I’ve been seeing is that if you have two copies of SPG running in two different accounts, only one has control (due to TiVo limitation), the other one just keeps failing the transfer. So I suppose you could just let them both run and when one is done, the other one would kick in with the different format preferences. You can then share one iTunes library with the other. Or what I’ve been doing is having the iPod format on the account that I sync my iPod with. And the other account has a higher quality format that is used to stream to my AppleTV.

Multiple TiVos:
If you have multiple TiVos that you want SPG to work with then you should have SPG run in separate user accounts for each TiVo. This is to make sure that their processes don’t collide.

Ownership & Permissions:
Make sure that you have Read & Write permissions on the SeasonPassGetter application. There was an unusual circumstance of having to reinstall the system and permissions got a little corrupted. SPG wasn’t able to set any preferences.

Debug mode:
I've added the ability to turn on a debug mode that writes debug information to a file in the same location as SPG. If you can't get SPG to work, turn on the debug mode and look at the debug file. If you can't see the problem in the file, send it to me and I can take a look. YOUR MAK IS IN THE DEBUG FILE. IF YOU SEND THE FILE TO ME, REMOVE THE MAK FROM THE DEBUG FILE IF YOU PREFER. I like to see it to make sure that it's formatted correctly but that's OK. A new debug file with a different name is started every time that SPG opens. The file name will look something like "DBG_Wed Oct 17 20_18_24 EDT 2007.txt".

NOTES:
SPG relies on iTunes to organize the files. So if, in iTunes, you make changes to the show name, episode title,  description, etc., then SPG won't be able to tell that it's a duplicate show and will re-transfer the show.

Tivo has a limitation of only allowing one transfer at a time. SPG will not work (well) in tandem with TiVoDecode Manager or any other application that transfers shows from the Tivo.

From some user reports, SPG is only compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and later.

The MAK is stored within the preferences inside of SPG. If you give someone your personalized copy of SPG, you are giving them your MAK. If you want to give someone a copy of SPG, please give them the .zip package.

The graphical interface isn’t as Mac like as I would like. This project started out as a faceless background task and has evolved into something that requires a minimal GUI. I use CocoaDialog for the GUI. It’s detached from SPG so the windows are independent from SPG and each other. Eventually I’ll create the whole GUI in Applescript Studio to make it more Mac like.

I don’t have multiple TiVos but have written the software to account for them. Please let me know if there are issues. I can’t test it here. Thanks.

The stop time is the time that SPG will stop attempting to start transferring a show. If a show transfer is in progress then it will continue until completion. Set the stop time some time earlier than when you want the network traffic to end.

To Do: (To Do list is put on hold until I have more time for development. Bug fixes only at this point.)
- Have another window that will display the full list of shows that SPG is planning to download.
- Make GUI more Mac like in behavior.
- Possible change to how SPG determines if a show already exists in iTunes. I found two shows with the same name and episode that had different descriptions. I may take out the check for description so that I don’t get two of the same episode. But if one of the descriptions is correct (or better) then I would want that one. Not sure what to do. 

Support

This product is distributed as a front-end interface for software written by other persons. Use at your own risk. There is no warranty or support provided.

If you appreciate this effort and/or would like to see more effort put towards it, please send a "Thanks for your husband's efforts" iCard to my wife, Julie, at jgrup@mac.com (or real flowers - email me for an address).

This is my first work. If there are any blaring errors please let me know. Thanks.mailto:jgrup@mac.comshapeimage_1_link_0
 
 
 
Automatically transfer Season Passes from TiVo® to iTunes® for use with FrontRow®, iPod®, or AppleTV®.
Welcome to SeasonPassGetter (SPG)