If you've got a TiVo, you might have heard of TiVo Desktop software. It's great but lacks some key capabilities if you happen to own an iPad, iPhone or Android device.

First, the issues:

1. TiVo's Desktop desktop software will get the programs from your TiVo, but won't let you convert them to a format suitable for your iPad unless you pay extra for the "Plus" edition.
2. Even with the "Plus" edition, the fixed resolution of the output video is an awful and totally unwatchable (IMO) 640 X 480 with horrific encoding quality. This apparently is due to agreements that TiVO has with content producers or broadcasters.
3. In this modern age, it would be nice to remove all commercials, automatically, safely and seamlessly. What you get from TiVo Desktop includes commercials obviously. Scrubbing past them on your mobile device is tricky, annoying and error prone.
4. It would be nice to be able to not to have to choose which programs you can watch in advance. With the TiVo Desktop setup, you have to pick what you want to take with you, sync your device to load the video files, etc. And once you're on the road, new programs can't be watched, since they are back at home on your computer.
5. Many manual steps. Can't we automate things in this day and age?

The solution let's you stream to any iOS or Android device or Mac (via StreamToMe Mac client app, available in the Mac App Store), totally automate the workflow of publishing and streaming your shows (and movies and pictures and music, too BTW).

Ok, first, enter "kmttg" (free) and "VideoReDo TV Suite" (not free but definitely worth it). With this combo, you can 100% automate the processing of TiVo programs, including:

• Downloading shows from your TiVo,
• Decrypting the .tivo files with your TiVo Media Access Key,
• Scanning and finding all commercials in the shows,
• Removing all commercials from the shows, and
• (optionally) Re-encoding to an h.264 .mp4 1280 X 720p maximum resolution format, friendly to devices, smaller than the original, etc.

You don't technically need VideoReDo TV Suite with kmttg, but as commercial software under active development, the quality of the video correction and encoding is far superior to the default free stuff that kmttg ships with. And kmttg has super-tight integration with VideoReDo to fully harness it's power if you have it installed.

However, I'd not recommend using the VideoReDo ad detection. The default ComSkip is far superior and has many knobs you can tweak (I simply enabled all "modes" of detection and it works nearly flawlessly).

Also, let me just say that kmttg is one impressive piece of software. It's a Google Code hosted project and is a real labor of love by the developer and he is very active on it and responds literally within minutes to feedback, questions and concerns. The software can run as a Windows Service, completely hands free, or in GUI mode, great for settings configuration, adding new shows to the list, etc.

To get the programs to adaptively stream to your devices from anywhere on WiFi or 3G, for iOS devices, check out the "AirPlayIt and "StreamToMe" apps + server software. The server software is free and both client apps support video out via special Apple cable to HDMI, composite or VGA TV inputs. Great for hotel rooms, most of which have HD TV's with HDMI inputs these days. Just bring your iPhone, small iPhone HDMI adapter and a small 3FT HDMI cable and all your SD and HD home content is available for streaming to your hotel HD TV 15 minutes after broadcast, commercial-free.

StreamToMe ($2.99) is a highly polished app/server combination, and in addition to video streaming supports pictures and music streaming. and much more, including AirPlay or HDMI out for audio and video output (to a hotel room TV, for example).

Air Play It (Free) is great as well and now supports iOS and Android devices and has the added option to queue server encoding jobs and download to the device for offline playback as well, which is nice.

Both do a terrific job with adaptive video streaming based on your current bandwidth situation (or lack thereof). I'd recommend getting and setting up both (setup takes literally just 5 minutes), since from time to time, one app can handle a particular video better than the other, it gives you assurance you will always get at your media, etc.

Also check out the "Qloud Media" app ($2.99) and "Qloud Server" software. It does Andriod and iOS as well.

I run all three servers on my computer at home and I can use my Amazon Kindle Fire (Qloud Media or Air Play It apps), iPad or iPhone (StreamToMe and Air Play It) to stream TV shows, movies music, and pictures from any device from anywhere, over WiFi or 3G with crisp HD quality and totally commercial free.

This makes a great weekend project. Then, the next time you're stuck in a hotel with $15 movies as your only decent viewing option, on the road and need to entertain the kids in the car, sitting waiting someplace, etc, you'll have your entire video library at your disposal, including new shows recorded while you have been away.

Have fun!

Damon