Couldn't sleep tonight, checked Bloglines and noticed a Wired article that went up about TiVo's very anticipated feature TiVoToGo (Series2 only), it lets TiVo users transfer shows to their PCs and laptops and moves us towards a solution for archival.. all that without hacks. This has been in the works for some time as Tivo had to appease content owners with some kind of DRM (Digital Rights Management) scheme. They came up with a software solution

TiVo had published a special Media Access Key weeks ago, signalling that the feature was on its way, the key enables shows to be viewed on computers

0- Setup home network with TiVo via a USB adapter (WiFi or Ethernet)

1- First step is to get the latest firmware upgrade for the TiVo itself, you can request to be on some priority list (I hope it won't take too long to happen). I tried forcing a connection to the TiVo Service but it didn't do anything. The upgraded software version should start with 7.1-X (a jump from 5.3-X). I guess I gotta just sit and wait

2- Download a new TiVoDesktop software (version 2.0, last version was 1.3), I think it said it was compatible with XP and 2000 only. This would let users manage transferred shows. In addition to the music and photo sharing options, there is a Now Playing panel, much like the TiVo UI

WMP 9 (Microsoft's Windows Media Player) is not supported, I think it's the most common version available on Windows to date. TiVo recommends getting WMP 10 to play the transferred shows. I noticed one of WMP10's file type was Microsoft Recorded TV Show (dvr-ms). The ugprade was relatively painless and the program doesn't look too bloated (I'm lookin at you iTunes)

There's some tentative solution with an obscure software called Sonic MyDVD to burn shows to a dvdr, more details have yet to be released

Post more as I get some practical use out of this