replay tv w/ firewire port

[statuspending]

replaytv has a built in firewire port for "future expansion." supposedly, we will be able to purchase devices like replaytv,tivo,philips personal tv receiver, microsoft piece-of-shit, etc in the future with firewire ports as a standard interface on the back.

thus, perhaps we could access the recorded video from our pcs over the firewire eh?

these boxes record in mpeg2, so it looks to me like you could go straight to svcd.


can you say "boojah?"

[sullen]

I have no idea if what you are asking is exactly possible, but I did read a little while back about one of the PVR companies trying to sue some people for making a program that would decipher the language they were using for encoding the stream. Some where there is a program that can decipher how info is stored on the hard drive of the PVR and therefor making it possible to record or transfer the data. I remember something about that it was possible to put stuff on the computer, but the process was a bit arduous, sort of like adding another hard drive to a TIVO. Hope that helps or at least gives you some hope.

[statuspending]

hmmm

so the video files are stored on there in their own unique format? thus, if i removed the harddrive and attached it to my pc, it may be a strange filesystem, and/or it may have files that i would have to decode to get standard mpeg2 files?

bogus!

well, i imagine this will be available someday. according to the manufacturers' websites, they are all looking into the possibilities.

mpeg2 hardware encoders are expensive as hell.. if this will be available, then you would be getting an mpeg2 hardware encoder, storage space, a nice-looking box, and standalone capability for a relatively small cost.


i still say "boojah"

[vanillabox]

Currently you can use TIVO with an add on network card to move the files form your device to your computer and use a TMPGEnc plug in that will convert it to a VCD (SVCD?) file. I will hunt down the links to this if there is any interest in it.
Note: You can already add a larger harddirve to your TIVO machine giving you plenty of recording time.

[vanillabox]

http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=47217&forum=6

here is a link to an earlier post that has some information on the TIVO Network card. you can also use it with DirecTIVO the sat. service.

[statuspending]

hardcore/softcore!

that's damn awesome that you are able to do that! i wonder if there are any other pieces of software that will decode/convert the video files since tmpg is only a trial.

a special network card eh? that's the softcore part about it. hell, this could really be really really cool!

if you can easily find those links, i would really appreciate it. if it's a hassle, don't worry about it.

tell me this though. with tivo, do you only need the ongoing subscription so that you can receive a tv-catalog onscreen? can it be used without a subscription?

what about the other competitors of tivo?

thanks

[statuspending]

ah.

you posted the link. i suppose i missed that part.

very interesting. is the conversion process a lengthy one? it wouldn't be worth it if the conversion takes a very long time. i think.


thanks

[vanillabox]

I haven't tried this on account that I don't even have cable, but it looks like it should take just as long for any other conversion. Here is the link to the software that will work with TMPGEnc and the readme docs. If anybody needs the linux software, I can get those links also.

http://www.stampede.org/~skibum/tivo/ software for TMPGEnc

http://www.9thtee.com/extractstream.html Instructions



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vanillabox on 2001-07-23 13:38:03 ]</font>

[statuspending]

thanks for the links!

i am beginning to think about getting a tivo now.

i could rig up an ugly looking thing with removable ide enclosures between my pc and the tivo as well so that i could fill one, swap, and then fill the other.

if the filesystem is ext2, then i could even pop the tivo hard drive in my linux machine and start converting! woo hah!

if you do have the linux links, those would be great as well


thanks!

[vanillabox]

Check out the both of the links in the previous post, they have the information and the C code for exactstream.

[thehire]

Has anyone successfully extracted video from their TiVo and converted it to VCD using TMPGEnc without having significant audio/video sync issues? I've read multiple guides and tried multiple combinations of software, but I always end up with a/v sync issues.

I've found tystudio (http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/tystudio/index.shtml), which lets me convert directly to SVCD or DVD, but doesn't allow for cropping the edges of the video, or go to VCD.