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We first wrote about the new policy allowing lifetime service transfers from DirecTV to Series3 TiVo via the TiVo VIP transfer here.

The word hasn’t spread too well among the TiVo operators, so it seems, but everyone who calls to do the transfer has made it work. If you’re going to try, you might ask your operator to reference article 090717. That should give them the info they need to process the transfer.

If you want to do this, buy your Series3 TiVo soon. The purchase must be made by 12/31/06 to qualify for the program, and the transfer must be completed by 1/31/07.

It’s Friday afternoon before a long Christmas weekend and I’m certainly ready to go home…but there is enough time for me to report the latest and greatest DIRECTV news, courtesy of AP:

“Under a deal announced Friday, Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. will give its 16.3 percent stake in Murdoch’s company back to News Corp….In exchange, Liberty will get a controlling stake in DirecTV Group Inc….plus three regional sports networks and $550 million in cash.”

If you love TiVo (and if you don’t own any DIRECTV stock, which has done particularly well this year), then you may not be a big fan of Rupert Murdoch, the head honcho at News Corp who also happens to hold the reins at DIRECTV. Murdoch also has an interest in NDS, which is the company largely behind the DIRECTV R15 and DIRECTV HR20-700, the two DVRs that replaced the DIRECTV DVRs with TiVo.

Many people have questioned why DIRECTV migrated from the TiVo platform to the NDS DVR platform, given the relative stablity and success of the DIRECTV TiVo DVRs. One of the more plausible explanations is that Rupert wanted to funnel the DVR business to NDS.

Once the deal with Liberty Media is final and DIRECTV is free of the Murdoch/NDS influence, will DIRECTV stay with its home-grown R15 and HR20 DVR? Will TiVo have another shot? Certainly plausible. A quick look at TiVo’s website indicates that a division of Liberty media is already an equity investor in TiVo.

TiVo has been offering its customers who have lifetime service the option to transfer that service to the new HD TiVos for $199. But this offer had been restricted to customers who had lifetime service on their standalone TiVo DVRs only – not those who had it on their DirecTV TiVos.

If you were one of the early DirecTV-TiVo users and you purchased lifetime service for your DirecTV unit, that lifetime service is now transferable to a Series3 HD TiVo for cable for the $199 VIP fee. To do this, you still need to purchase the Series3 unit by 12/31/06. So if you were on the fence about switching to cable, this should help – and the new Series3 TiVo is truly amazing!

Final important note: The Series3 TiVo will NOT work with DirecTV, so this deal only makes sense if you’re planning to switch to cable.

Just arrived – already half eaten.

Well, it finally happened – and hackers did it before TiVo. Mac users can download shows from their TiVo and play them on their Macs. It takes a little more effort, but it’s really not too bad. And, judging by the work already done to make it easier, it’ll only get easier still.

To start, you need the TiVo decode software. This links to your TiVo (you’ll need your media access key) and pulls down the files, and decodes them. It’s one-at-a-time, but in my experience, it was pretty fast.

Then, you need a way to play the file. QuickTime and iTunes won’t do it. VLC will. And it works pretty well also.

We’re definitely wondering if this will last – so if you want these apps, get them while you (easily) can.