How to download online videos to your TiVo

By Lisa Phifer

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Why wait around for re-runs of that classic movie or missed TV episode when you could download them immediately? Online rental services like CinemaNow and Movielink let you transfer videos to your desktop or laptop so that you can watch them anytime. Amazon Unbox goes one step further, letting you send purchased or rental videos directly to your broadband-connected TiVo.

Understanding Unbox

With Amazon Unbox, you'll be able to browse a catalog of available movies and shows from any Web browser or right from your TiVo. When you spot a video that you want to rent or buy, you'll be able order it with a single click. Within 15 minutes, Amazon will automatically start downloading the movie or show to your TiVo’s Now Playing list.

Once the entire video has been downloaded – which typically takes roughly an hour for a movie or 30 minutes for a TV show – it can be viewed at your leisure, just like anything else in your Now Playing list. Video rentals remain on your TiVo up to 30 days, or 24 hours after you start to watch them. Video purchases are yours to watch over and over again, forever.

Unbox offers some nifty features. You can save space on your TiVo by removing a previously-purchased movie, but download it again whenever you want to from your Media Library on Amazon’s Web site. And you can download any purchase onto a second TiVo, desktop or laptop so you can watch it at home and on the road.

However, it has some limitations. For example, downloads cannot be burned onto a DVD to be played on another ordinary DVD player. If you own more than one TiVo, downloaded videos cannot be transferred directly from one TiVo to another. Videos also cannot be downloaded to old Series1 or DIRECTV TiVos. Finally, if your TiVo is not yet connected to broadband, you must complete that step first (see “Connecting your DVR to your home network”).

Prepping your TiVo

You will need to complete several simple steps to prepare your TiVo to receive Amazon Unbox downloads. First, you must have a MyTiVo account at www.tivo.com with a registered Series2 or Series3 TiVo DVR. Log into that account and edit your DVR’s preferences, giving each TiVo a unique name and checking the box labeled “Enable video downloads.”
 

Next, go to www.amazon.com and create an Amazon user account. Log into that account, browse www.amazon.com/unbox/tivo, and follow instructions to link your Amazon account to your TiVo account. You must enter your MyTiVo login and password, accept Amazon’s terms of service, and enter a credit card to pay for future video rentals and purchases.
 

After completing Amazon set-up, you can configure a 5-digit Purchase PIN. That PIN is not necessary to order downloads from Amazon’s Web site, but it is required to order Unbox downloads from your TiVo. That way, your kids can't download Unbox videos and charge them to your Amazon account.
 

At this point, you can browse the Amazon Unbox catalog and order video downloads. Whenever you rent or buy a show through Amazon’s website, you’ll be presented with a list of authorized devices – the named DVRs registered to your MyTiVo account. If you don’t see your DVR listed on Amazon, go to MyTiVo and check those video download preferences. And if you buy a second DVR, you must add it through MyTiVo before you can download videos from Amazon.
 

Figure 4. Ordering an Amazon Unbox video rental.

Where's my video download?

To check the status of your order, visit your personal Media Library at Amazon.com. Amazon automatically maintains a list of previous orders, and this page can be used to download the same video to either the original device or a second device (DVR, PC, or laptop) associated with your TiVo account.

It can take several minutes for a download to start. But once the transfer begins, you should see the video appear on your TiVo's Now Playing list. (Remember, you cannot actually play the video until the download finishes.) In the unlikely's what might have gone wrong:

1. Verify that your TiVo can reach the Internet by launching TiVo Central and clicking through the following menu sequence:
   • Messages and Settings
   • Settings
   • Phone and Network
   • Test network connection

   Possible problems include disconnected Ethernet cables or Wi-Fi connections and invalid IP addresses. See "Connecting my DVR to my home network" for further hints.

2. Even if your TiVo is connected to the Internet, your broadband router may block traffic associated with the video download. Your TiVo uses only outbound sessions. However, Unbox uses different TCP ports than those used to synchronize your TV schedules and software. Check your router’s firewall rules to make sure that outbound sessions are permitted on TCP ports 8000 and 8081.
3. Make sure that your video was not downloaded and subsequently deleted to make space for new shows. Check your TiVo’s Now Playing list – Recently Deleted folder. If you find a purchased program there, you will be able to recover it. You can also recover a rental within the 30 day/24 hour rental period. However, you cannot recover rentals beyond their expiration dates. To avoid this in the future, you may want to set Unbox downloads to "Keep until I delete."
4. If your download never gets started, a common culprit is lack of disk space. If your TiVo is running near full capacity, you’ll have to clean up before your video can be downloaded. The quality of (and space required by) Unbox downloads are comparable to shows recorded on a Series2 TiVo at high quality. After deleting unwanted content, restart the failed download from your Media Library at Amazon.
5. If all else fails, browse the Help Forums on TiVo’s Web site. Most problems will occur during your first download, and rarely thereafter. However, Internet connectivity problems can still crop up at any time. But Internet connectivity problems won’t simply prevent Unbox downloads – they’ll also stop TV schedule updates, TiVoCast and other Internet-based TiVo features. So check that cable one more time…

Once you've successfully downloaded your program, just sit back and enjoy the show!