I was very excited to get my new TiVo HD DVRs due to the fact that I didn’t have to hack them, add a network adapter, and install MFS_FTP to pull shows (which was a ton of work for my DirecTV TiVos.)  Unfortunately, TiVoToGo show downloads fail on almost all of the programs I’ve tried to pull.  For example, for a 1 hour show, I can only download the first 1 minute (68 MB).

At first I tried using TiVo Desktop (free download from TiVo.com) to download the programs and experienced the problem.  I figured it was an issue with that software, so I searched for a different method of downloading.  It turns out you can download shows directly from with your browser (details here.)  I tried downloading multiple shows from different browsers on 2 different computers and came up with the same result each time: a very short, partial, incomplete download.

I think this is a bug with the TiVo HD sofware not being able to properly generate the *.tivo file that is re-packaged as it is downloaded to your computer. Each shows bugged-out at the exact same spot regardless which download method was used.  In fact, the only show that downloaded fully was one that pulled from TiVo HD 1 -> TiVo HD 2 -> computer (using multi-room viewing, then downloading to PC.)

At this point, I don’t know what the solution is.  It’s probably going to require a new version of TiVo software.  I’m hoping they fixed it sooner rather than later.  I know it’s not just me; I’ve seen a few other posts on TiVo Community Forum.  I’m guessing as more people play around with the feature, it will become more of an issue.

I’ll post an update when I have one.  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.