Every so often I have the need and/or the desire to move some local videos on to my Tivo.  These could be home movies, videos I have downloaded off the web via bittorrent, etc.  I've messed with a variety of solutions over the years, but for my own records and perhaps for your benefit I thought I'd just document it here.

The tools I am using the most these days for this task are Galleon and VLC. 

Galleon is a free open source media server for the Tivo DVR which allows you to enjoy many kinds of content and interactive applications right on your TV. The server runs on your home computer and organizes your media collection so that they can be viewed on your home network. Galleon also brings Internet content and applications to your TV.

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Tivo produces a desktop application called Tivo Desktop which allows you to interact with your Tivo via your Mac or PC.  The application is nice, but in my opinion the software is a bit dated and rather limiting.  One of the many features offered by Galleon is the ability to transfer video to and from our Tivo.  The setup for this is rather simple.  It seems like the biggest sticking point for most people is getting Tivo to actually recognize the video we want to transfer from our computer over to the Tivo itself.  You create a shared directory in Galleon which Tivo knows to check, but it doesn't just recognize any video you place there.  The video must meet the video specs which Tivo is capable of playing.  I've found the easiest way to make this happen is to utilize VLC.  The Galleon site has a nice screencast which demonstrates the proper settings/steps for video export.  If you follow this guide Tivo should immediately see the video and allow your to transfer it just as if it was connected to another Tivo.  The look of VLC has changed a bit since the screencast was done, but it's close enough to get you through the process. 

Of course if you plan to do this more often or setup some kind of automated process then you should investigate VLC's command-line interface.  Here are some helpful pages to get you started, the wiki and the manual.  As mentioned earlier you'll need to make sure the video you craft has the appropriate settings in order to make sure Tivo recognizes it.  The VLC export wizard hides a lot of that magic from you so I'm listing the acceptable settings below for those who need them (Note: this settings where obtained from here).