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Power HMO
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Posted by: Laurence

I just found the free HMO option and was initially thrilled with the idea of being able to use Tivo as my music control and distribution network.
I loaded the server and began browsing my music files in a matter minutes thanks to a simple setup process.

However, I quickly ran some limitations and so here are some suggestions to make the service far more flexible and powerful.

1) Provide Playlist creation, management and playback features. I use an iPod with iTunes both of which have fabulous playlist capabilities. Apples is not alone here. Virtually all music playback hardware and software provides playlist functionality.

2) Provide playback of more than just MP3 format files. As I mentioned, I store my music in iTunes that allows me to use the AAC and AIFF lossless formats. Hence I suggest that Tivo support these common formats.

By adding these two features, Tivo has the opportunity to be a market leader in the computer to TV and audio interface market. Currently, there are only a few players in the networked audio arena, notable of which are Slim Devices, who provide a good wireless audio device called a Squeezbox, and Turtlebeach who have a newtorkable MP3 audio component called the Audiotron. Neither of these two leaders (at least in my opinion) have really produced the ideal audio system, nor do they have any video capabilities. Most notable is the fact that they cost much more than Tivo.

Provision of the above suggestions would make Tivo even more indispensable and essential to the modern home. I sure hope they are in the pipeline.

Posted by: HTH

HMF

Posted by: Cloud

Need WMA support!!!!!

Posted by: Hunter Green

HMO will play the .m3u playlists you create on the PC transparently, allowing you to use the software you already have. Personally I wouldn't want to try to make a playlist with a remote, that's clunky. But for those who would... sorry, you can't. :)

Posted by: Cloud

How do I make a .m3u playlist?

Posted by: Hunter Green

Most MP3 software can create them, including MusicMatch, WinAmp, and Windows Media Player. There's also lots of software you can download that makes playlists. For what it's worth, you can make one yourself the hard way -- it's just a text file with a pathname on each line.

Posted by: skanter

quote:
Originally posted by Cloud
Need WMA support!!!!!

Do a search on the HMO forum, I'm pretty sure there is an add-on program that will let you play WMA files on Tivo.

Posted by: Dennis Wilkinson

quote:
Originally posted by Laurence
1) Provide Playlist creation, management and playback features. I use an iPod with iTunes both of which have fabulous playlist capabilities. Apples is not alone here. Virtually all music playback hardware and software provides playlist functionality.

If you're using iTunes on a Macintosh, all of your iTunes playlists should be available on the TiVo. If you're using it on a Windows PC, that integration (which is provided by the Mac version of TiVo Desktop) isn't available, although if you save them as .m3u files as mentioned above, those should also work. One utility to help with this is available at:

<http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/it...ingstarted.html>

Posted by: crowfan

Take a look at J. River Media Center. It works with TiVo HMO and will convert other formats to mp3 on-the-fly for playing on the TiVo. It's probably the greatest piece of software I own.

crow