# Video email



## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

Add a cheap camera to the analog inputs through a Y junction

A USB connector gates whether the Y junction allows input from the STB or from the camera. 

Tivo records the message and allows you to send it to other Tivos, or to email addresses. 

This particular approach allows the use of very low cost video cameras that only ouput composite video, and gating the inputs is an extremely simple circuit, so the cogs on this has to be in the $40 range. The Tivo show is recorded like any other Tivo show. The only thing different is that you have some additional UI to support initiating a video email and inbox/ outbox. The rest of it leverages existing TTG infrastructure.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Cheaper, and more controllable would be USB cameras. 

Composite video cameras could lead to content abuse.


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

Actually the Tivo checks VBI flags now as a speed bump for content abuse.

I disagree on costs. Implementation is of course up to them, but it seems to me that composite video cams are far cheaper than USB cams of the same resolution. With microphone amplified to line levels would leverage a heck of a lot of existing software and hardware support. A digitizing USB cam is more costly/ requires digiitization and compression in the cam/ potentially wrong resolution / more custom sofware needed to store the file to disk.

So higher cogs, higher project complexity, more custom code required.

But sure. A single connection to the USB port would be more elegant.


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