How To Install pyTiVo On A Mac

I finally got around to installing pyTiVo on my MacBook Pro (running Leopard 10.5.5).  Unlike the Windows install, installing pyTiVo on a Mac isn’t all that easy.  The instructions on pyTiVo’s website were very helpful however, I thought I would publish the following instructions since I think they’re a more complete.  If I ever get to it, I’ll go ahead and update the pyTiVo wiki with these instructions.

The entire install took a couple of hours.  Most of this time was spent waiting for Xcode to download (996 MB) and compiling/buidling FFmpeg via MacPorts.  Let me know if these instructions are incomplete or if you encounter a problem with them.

Now that I have pyTiVo running on my MacBook Pro, I plan on putting together a complete review sometime in the near future.  Thus far I am extremely happy with the product.  It truly is great to be able to watch all of my home movies from the comfort of my couch.  Great job pyTiVo developers, I really do appreciate this product!

1. Download and install XCode 3.1.2 from here (996MB).
2. Download and install MacPorts 1.6.0 from here.
3. Edit the .profile file located in your home directory and set the PATH variable to the following:
   export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
4. Open the terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and update MacPorts using the following command (additional info on the port command can be found here):
   sudo port -v selfupdate
5. Install lame using the following command:
   sudo port install lame
6. Build and install FFmpeg using the following command:
   sudo port install ffmpeg +lame +libogg +vorbis +theora +faac +faad +xvid +x264 +a52 +dts
7. Download and extract the current release of pyTiVo from this url.  Note that pyTiVo has been forked into a number of different versions.  I’m using the wmcbrine version on my MacBook Pro.  You can extract pyTiVo anywhere on you HD however, I choose to place it in my Applications folder since this seems to make the most sense.
8. Once extracted, copy pyTivo.conf.dist to pyTivo.conf
9. cd to the directory where you extracted pyTiVo to and issue the following command:
   python pyTivo.py
10. If all is successful, you should see the following in your terminal window:
    INFO:pyTivo:pyTivo is ready.
11. Open your web browser and access the following url:
    http://localhost:9032
12. Click on the “pyTivo Web Configuration” link.
13. Next, click on the “MyMovies” configuration item in the upper left hand corner.
14. Enter the path to your video files in the “path” textbox.  Note that pyTiVo will search subfolders for video files.
15. Edit your server settings via the “Global Server Section”
16. Enter the full path to FFmpeg:
    /opt/local/bin/ffmpeg
    
17. In order to save your changes, click on the “Save Changes” button and than the “Soft Reset pyTivo” button.
18. Now, pickup your TiVo remote and access your Now Playing List.  From there you should see a new item at the bottom of the screen called “MyMovies” (you can change this value in step 13 above).  Select the “MyMovies” item and you should see all of your videos/subfolders listed.  In my case, I have pyTiVo configured to access the “originals” folder in my iPhoto library.  I store all of my home videos in my iPhoto library so, this works out great for me.

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