Briefly: Roxio Toast Titanium 8

Don’t waste your money for the TiVo integration unless you use Toast all the time. (And if you do, this seems to be the cheapest option for upgrades.)

Use this. And it’s free. Sure, the interface could use work, but it does work…

It’s an odd move, especially considering that after 2 years of promising TiVoToGo for the Mac, they’ve kinda-sorta-delivered it in a $99 package offered by a third-party. Roxio’s included a “TiVo Transfer” program and a “Toast Video Player” application for playing the DRM protected files (which appears to be a stripped down version of ElGato’s EyeTV software). About the only unique feature is an “auto-transfer” feature which allows you to flag a particular show for download. It does work, but again, not worth the money. I realize that the DRM codec is licensed and therefore cost someone money, but I’m not sure who in this case. I’d be interested to learn the biz details of this unholy marriage. Seems ElGato or Roxio could release this part alone for like $20-$30 and not piss quite as many people off.

Toast 8 suffers another interface change, this time with those lame “fade in” windows and other animations which look pretty if I were working a kiosk at a museum, but don’t do much for productivity. (Thankfully, there is an option to turn them off.)

This also, of course, does nothing for that Series 3 sitting in my living room right now. (My CableCards don’t come until Friday, Comcast “insisted” on “professional installation,” but some mild amount of bitching got the $16 fee waived. I can deal with the $1.50/mo card rental fee — I’ll be saving a whole $2/mo when I send one those horrid boxes back w/the Comcast guy. And, oddly, I didn’t get the “You’ll have no OnDemand!” freak out, only a weak upsell for Digital Voice. I did find it amusing that the recorded message said I’d experience “longer than expected wait times” due to “strong demand for Digital Voice” and I got a live person within, oh, 20 seconds.)