TiVo2Plex

Given files exported from cTiVo, convert them to mp4s, embed metadata, and move into a Plex library. I know cTiVo can do all this stuff, but I prefer to have heavy processing tasks done by something other than my laptop.

Prerequisites

For this to work, you need the following on your PATH:

comskip
ffmpeg
mediainfo

Getting Started

NB: I've only run this on a modern Ubuntu, so YMMV on other platforms.

Getting Files out of cTiVo

In my workflow, I expose a network share named space from the Linux box to my Mac. The share points to /space/tivo/, and within that I have the directory /kids/tv.

On my Mac, I mount space and point cTiVo at /Volumes/space/tivo/kids if I want to export TV shows for the kids (cTiVo being smart enough to segment tv from movies and store episodes at paths based on show and season, assuming you tell it to).

cTiVo Configuration

Set General Option "Show Shows in Folders"
Set Advanced Option "Export Metadata to pyTiVo .TXT file"
Make sure the first part of the "Filename Template" in Advanced Options matches the name of the directories you'll use for tv and movies. I've changed mine from the default because I prefer lower-case paths. Here's mine: ["tv" / MainTitle / "Season " Season | Year / MainTitle " - " SeriesEpNumber | OriginalAirDate ["-" ExtraEpisode][" - " EpisodeTitle | Guests]]["movies" / MainTitle " (" MovieYear ")"]

Running TiVo2Plex

Edit lib/config.json with your local paths.
Run node lib/converter.js
Download a show from cTiVo. As soon as it lands, processing should begin.

Future Plans

Support multiple relative paths so that I can export tv shows and movies for my two sets of libraries in Plex (parents and kids, in my case).