New to the group, general questions

[celledge2]

I am new to the group. I have a stand alone Tivo running 2.5 
software and 2 X 40GB drives. I have installed Tivonet and played 
around for a few days now. I have tried several tools to extract 
video with only partial success. As a small test, I extracted the 
Tivo demo and it converted flawlessly. However, when I try to 
convert ty streams of my recordings, I either get video only or 
nothing at all (all bad). I also get a green bar down the left side.

My questions:

Is it required to record at best quality? (dumb question I know, I 
always do..just asking)

Do others have problems with only some recordings converting 
successfully?

With so many tools out there now, what is the best combination of 
extraction/conversion utilities? I have been using Tytool to extract 
the ty streams because it is very easy to use. Then I have tried 
several different conversion tools including Tytool and splitstream. 
I just don't end up with good audio and video files.

Thanks for any advice. Also, thanks to those that have contributed 
so much!!

Chris