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iTunes For Windows With TiVo

Yesterday I used a gift card I got for my birthday (thanks Virginia!) to buy a USB wireless network adapter for my TiVo. I did this so that I could play the music on my computer on the TiVo which can play through the home stereo system. This was easier said than done because the current version of the TiVo Desktop for Windows doesn’t integrate with iTunes for Windows at all. So after setup I could get to and play the MP3s in my library, but I couldn’t use the existing iTunes playlists. And the TiVo didn’t recognize the export iTunes playlist export formats, text or XML. Needless to say this was not the experience I was hoping for, so I started Googling for an answer.

What I found out was that TiVo does recognize WinAmp’s M3U playlist format. A little more digging revealed Phil’s iTunes Songlist To M3U Converter that converts the iTunes playlists exported in the text format into the M3U format. So I converted the playlists into playlistname.m3u files and placed them in the directory I setup for shared music in TiVo Desktop. Now the playlists show up in the TiVo menu available for use. Yay! Thanks Phil!

The only trouble I ran into was with songlists containing songs from albums with Asian characters (Chinese and Japanese in my case) in the names. These wouldn’t show up in the converted list or at least the TiVo couldn’t deal with them. So I had to give those albums names in Romaji ASCII characters and reconvert the lists, just a minor issue. And of course, right now TiVo cannot play anything I bought via the iTunes Music Store, but since most of my collection consists of MP3s, this isn’t a big issue yet and I expect this limitation to change in the future.

Yesterday I used a gift card I got for my birthday (thanks Virginia!) to buy a USB wireless network adapter for my TiVo. I did this so that I could play the music on my computer on the TiVo which can play through the home stereo system. This was easier said than done because the current version of the TiVo Desktop for Windows doesn’t integrate with iTunes for Windows at all. So after setup I could get to and play the MP3s in my library, but I couldn’t use the existing iTunes playlists. And the TiVo didn’t recognize the export iTunes playlist export formats, text or XML. Needless to say this was not the experience I was hoping for, so I started Googling for an answer.

What I found out was that TiVo does recognize WinAmp’s M3U playlist format. A little more digging revealed Phil’s iTunes Songlist To M3U Converter that converts the iTunes playlists exported in the text format into the M3U format. So I converted the playlists into playlistname.m3u files and placed them in the directory I setup for shared music in TiVo Desktop. Now the playlists show up in the TiVo menu available for use. Yay! Thanks Phil!

The only trouble I ran into was with songlists containing songs from albums with Asian characters (Chinese and Japanese in my case) in the names. These wouldn’t show up in the converted list or at least the TiVo couldn’t deal with them. So I had to give those albums names in Romaji ASCII characters and reconvert the lists, just a minor issue. And of course, right now TiVo cannot play anything I bought via the iTunes Music Store, but since most of my collection consists of MP3s, this isn’t a big issue yet and I expect this limitation to change in the future.

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