Off Loading TIVO Recordings as a Digital Signal to a Computer

Install a video capture device e.g. Snazzi, Hauppage, Pinnacle or something similar in your PC. Install the necessary drivers and software that comes with the device. Connect your TIVO audio and video output to the device. Power up your PC; when it has fully started uo, start your TIVO playback to generate an incoming signal. Start up your vidcap software and begin recording. Since you have to start playback before running your software, you'll need to either start your playback at a point before the actual recording begins, or stop and restart your playback after starting up your software. Once you have successfully recorded your program in the PC, you can edit it with the included editing software before burning it into a DVD.

Have fun.

As it turns out I have an exceptionally good Video Capture card in my shop which I use in recording images from my optical bench using a 8mm digital camera ( I make telescope mirrors).

It never occurred to me to use that and I will as an interim measure until I can justify the expense of a satillite receiver with an integrated DVR.

However, the process you are proposing will use the inferior quality signal to the TV, composite video so to speak, or the more modern equivalent. That is not what is on the hard drive inside the TIVO but it will have to suffice.

I am curious to know what would happen were I to remove the hard drive from the TIVO (A standard IDE drive), hook it up to the motherboard as a slave, and turned on the PC?

What prompts me to speculate about this was the news that the TIVO and similar storage units use conventional hard drives with conventional Windows formatting.

If that is true, then the thing to do is swap out drives back and forth and simply copy the data from the TIVO drive to the PC's master drive. Then afterwards burn a DVD from that.

However, I simply do not have the time needed to indulge that game. Too many other priorities.

Your method will have to do. I know it will work.

Thanks

L.J.

I hate to rain on the parade, but the data on the drive is DRM-'protected'. Simply installing it in another PC got the files moved, but not decoded.

If the box is a real TiVo device, check out the TiVo-to-Go feature. It's free, you don't have to gut your TiVo, and (with Sonic's MyDVD) you can decode the .tivo files and write them to DVD. It's SDTV (not HDTV), but it's a darn sight better than VHS.

-Dayton

That's not rain Dayton, that's sunshine!

Thanks!

L.J.

Hello, if you look on Google tivo hacks may help you find ways to pull the files off the unit. Tivo Hacks for Beginners might give you someplace to start.

Good luck, and be forewarned there are copyrights laws governed how and what you can do with the content.

With that said, personal use is just that personal use.

metalSmith's