I have read that it takes a little work to backup TIVO files to SVCD...well what about backuping my Tivo Programs to DVD-R? Has anyone done this as of yet and is it any easier?
Thanks:beer:

anyone know???

You need to have a way to interface the TIVo with the PC. Easiest would be a capture device, but that's really the same as just capturing from any other source. The TIVO stores MPEG2 files, so I would imagine you would have to yank the Hard Drive and put it into a PC to burn right from it. Then, I don't know how the drive is formatted, or if a PC could read the files if it is non standard. There MAY be some company out there (?) that has an interface cable from it to PC, but I have not heard of that. You might want to ask the guys over at www.maximumpc.com because they have a guide on upgrading to a larger drive in a tivo, and might be able to give you some input on this. Maybe the geeks at www.techtv.com also.

Check this out!
http://www.9thtee.com/tivocommkit.htm

Thats only for terminal emulation. That won't allow you to copy . . . actually thats not true, you can Zmodem files, but thats slow as balls. Look up Tivonet or TivoWeb. You can throw a nic card into your tivo and make it network ready.

I have seen the Tivonet and Turbonet cards at 9thtee dot com for fast ethernet transfer of tivo files to hard drive. would these mpeg 2 files be able to burned *without* conversion to dvd-r? i don't wanna waste time doing conversion needed to svcd...thanks for the input:)

Well, I have the solution. I own a Terapin VDR and I'm buying Tivo this weekend, so, I'll use no PC for my backups.:D

Grego24, seems to me, that you would just play OUT from the Tivo to your capture card and re-record direct to you're HD.

Holla

I would think that the TIVO specs would be posted somewhere, look them up and see if they are DVD complient. I would also think it more than likely though that they use 44.1KHz audio and not 48KHz.

Hmmm, just had a quick search 30hrs/30 gigs=1gig/hour... (1024/(60*60))*8*1024=2330 which is around SVCD spec, although it is quite possible that it is half DVD res, which would make it DVD complient, well if you resampled the audio to 48KHz.

I have a tivo and I just use my settop Panasonic DVD-R like a VCR. It doesn't offer too many menu options but I get perfect DVD-R's of my TV shows every time. A few of the new DVD-R machines even have a hard drive built in so you can edit out commercials before burning to disk. No more messy computer captures and complicated encoding.

AFAIK, TiVo uses 32kHz audio, not 44.1 or 48. It also doesn't record at 720x576 but I can't remember how many lines it does do (something in the 400s range, I think). There are programs out there (command line, beta, very early) that can convert the TiVo files from their native format to DVD compliant ones.

Rolf.