G'day all TiVo users

First let me wish you all a Happy New Year

I purchases a TiVoHD unit a few weeks ago in a 'birthday bundle', which included the Netgear power over ethernet adapter and WD 1TB DVR expander from Harvey Norman. Also obtained the free HNP.

It is only the 160GB model but with the 1TB expansion drive I didn't see this as a problem and am backing up my TiVo files on my computer which will hopefully guard against the increase risk of hard drive failure / data corruption.

The 1TB drive would not work out of the box even though the TiVo unit would recognise if it was connected or not. I took the HDD unit back to Harvey Norman who swapped it over for a new one. No problems with the new one and has been working ever since.

Other than the the HDD problem everything appears to be working as expected and I am very happy with the TiVo system in general. (customer service is another matter)

I have a question for other TiVo users which I am sure there is an answer to but as yet I have not found the answer in a web search.

I am backing up my recordings on my PC, which is a ridiculously slow process but the ability to auto transfer and to cue files makes it manageable. Once I have my files (in .tivo format) I would like to strip off the 1-3 minute start ahead of time and the 5-20 minute overrun of the recording using some sort of video editor.

Here lies my problem, the .tivo file format prevents me from doing this.
What I need is a piece of software to convert my files to a video format that I can then edit. This will also allow the added bonus of being able to burn to DVD and watch on my laptop.

Alternatively a video editor that will work with .tivo file format. This method will loose the ability to watch on any device but I am most concerned with being able to edit the video.

I know I can change video formats to use on a portable device but I want to retain the original resolution and quality of the video.

I have tried the Direct Show Dump Utility (ver 0.1.1424.0) that appears to be the common solution offered when I searched the web but the output files are corrupted when I tried this.

Is this the best software available (or correct version) or is there another method?
I am sure I am not the only one with this question as it would be one of the most common things to try and do once you have your .tivo files.

Hope for some help with what is otherwise a good out of the box DVR system.

Regards
Andrew