Quick web searching suggests that VLC does not play TiVo files (could be incorrect of course).
I used paid-for software VideoReDo TVSuite which supports TiVo files https://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm. I still use it to edit FetchTV FTA recordings. There is a Free Trial option that may be worth a go.
BTW downloading files via Chrome may loop endlessly unless manually paused just a few seconds before a loop is complete. Then refresh the Windows - File Explorer - Downloads folder (press F5) until the expected file size is shown. Then copy (not move) the file to another folder and rename the copy to whatever.tivo. Then Cancel the download - it will delete the Downloads file.
I don't know if other browsers have that problem. [EDIT: Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers do have that looping problem when downloading FetchTV recordings. Cannot remember if this happened when downloading from TiVo - too long ago. Perhaps not because the transfer is controlled via the TiVo login. Somewhat ironically I use VLC to determine the URL of a FetchTV recording to paste into a browser to download. Unlike TiVo it does not have MAK-like encoding.]
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