View photos on your computer via TiVo

One of my favorite things to do is take a digital picture of a visitor to my house, and then in less then three minutes display the photo on one of my televisions. There are a few ways to do it, but today I will give a quick lesson on using TiVo to perform this neat trick.

First, you need to own a TiVo DVR. No, not the one supplied by your local Satellite or Cable Company. I’m talking about the full featured TiVo Series II or Series III. The first thing you have to do is configure TiVo for use in your area code so that it will have your local TV listings. Follow the instructions in the box and connect it wirelessly to your home network, or connect it to a telephone jack. Once TiVo is configured for the TV listings you are now ready for the more advanced features.

Download TiVo Desktop to your computer. It is a small application that provides the communications between TiVo and your computer. Once installed publish your photos.

Publishing your photos with TiVo Desktop
Publishing your photos means making photo files available over your home network to your TiVo DVR. Publishing does not copy photo files to your DVR, so published photos do not use any of your DVR's recording space. To publish a folder of photos:

1. Open TiVo Desktop and select the "Share Music, Photos, & Video" icon.
2. Click the "Photos" tab, and then click "Add Photos."
3. Navigate to the folder containing the folder of photos you want to publish. When you select a folder, any photo files within that folder are listed in the right frame of the "Add Photos" window.
4. To publish a whole folder of photos, select the folder and click "Add." To publish individual photo files, select them from the list on the right, and then click "Add."

Viewing your photos on your TiVo DVR

To view photos on the TiVo DVR:
5. Go to 'TiVo Central' > 'Music, Photos, Products, & More'.
6. Select your photos on your computer. (Your selection may vary depending on how your computer is named.)
7. You will see any folders you have published. Highlight one and press PLAY. In a few seconds, you see a slideshow of photos from the folder. Photos display in the slide show in alphabetical order by file name.

That was a quick and dirty lesson on how to have TiVo display your photos. Another option is to use Apple TiVo, but that discussion is for another day!