# using Tivo to record from security camera?



## Sinar (Oct 24, 2002)

Hi,

I have had a Tivo for many years, and love it. 

Recently my car was vandalised and I was thinking of getting a security camera to point at it in case it is damaged again, so I'll have some record to show the police.

I would want the camera to record constantly, with at least 14 hours of the latest recordings, and I was wondering if a Tivo could be used for this, I wondering if anyone has tried something similar or have any idea if this might work?

It would be perfect if I could connect the camera to the Tivo (using a scart adapter) and have the Tivo recording the signal constantly, wiping over the older recordings while recording the new.

Any thoughts appreciated,

thanks for reading ,

Julie


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## steveroe (Oct 29, 2002)

Yes, this is certainly possible.

You could connect via scart then set a series of repeating one hour (for example) recordings. As space is required by TiVo then it will delete the older recordings and overwrite.

I don't think you'd even need a subscription to do this (can someone confirm regarding repeating manual recordings?)


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## Bakdraft (Dec 21, 2002)

There used to be a guy on this forum who specifically used his Tivo is a dedicated way for security cameras, he had his own website. I can't remember his name, but I think it was something like Bigblue or something???


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

A friend of mine does this with one of his Tivo's he has a repeating 12 hour maual recording with keep at least 2. That way he always has the last 24hrs recording. If you are using a dedicated Tivo you may just as well record 24/7 because thats what Tivo does. He has had his running 24/7 for the last 3 years with no problem.

My comment to him has always been "What a waste of a Tivo". Why not just use an old VCR.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

RichardJH said:


> A friend of mine does this with one of his Tivo's he has a repeating 12 hour maual recording with keep at least 2. That way he always has the last 24hrs recording.


If I was doing this I'd set it up for 1 or 2 hour recordings and not set a "keep at least". Let it go on recording and recording until the TiVo itself starts using it's own management system to delete as needed. You'd find it starts deleting the oldest recordings first. There's no great benefit gained by keeping only a day or so, why not keep weeks and weeks of them. Using a 12 hour recording rather than a 1 or 2 hour recording is a bad idea though. If you ever want to actually find something, a 12 hour recording is not a nice thing to be fast forwarding through.



RichardJH said:


> My comment to him has always been "What a waste of a Tivo". Why not just use an old VCR.


My comment to him would be "what a GREAT use of a TiVo considering that there are cheap unsubbed ones on ebay to be picked up for the price of a VCR" ... why would he want to use a VCR ? It's a management headache with all the tapes.


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

> If I was doing this I'd set it up for 1 or 2 hour recordings and not set a "keep at least". Let it go on recording and recording until the TiVo itself starts using it's own management system to delete as needed. You'd find it starts deleting the oldest recordings first. There's no great benefit gained by keeping only a day or so, why not keep weeks and weeks of them. Using a 12 hour recording rather than a 1 or 2 hour recording is a bad idea though. If you ever want to actually find something, a 12 hour recording is not a nice thing to be fast forwarding through.


Point taken but then I only set it up to what he wanted.

3+ years ago it was an expensive way to go compared to an old VCR.

The good thing about my friend is that when he and his wife stopped using 2 other lifetime subbed Tivos because she preferred live TV   I got them at a very good price


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

RichardJH said:


> 3+ years ago it was an expensive way to go compared to an old VCR.


Indeed. Those were joyous and hopeful times. Who'd have thought that 3+ years later we'd still be using these series 1 boxes eh


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

and for me I now have had nearly 7 Tivo years (3 boxes) all with lifetime subs for less than £500 including 250gb upgrades and cachecards in 2 of them. The 3rd box now lives with my daughter.


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## Sinar (Oct 24, 2002)

Thanks a lot for all of your replies, it sounds like that solution would be ideal, obviously I'm not going to be using my Tivo, I couldn't live without it, but I'll try and pick one up on Ebay,

Julie


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

I suggest modifying the bitrate and maybe even the resolution of the default record settings to get better vbr compression.


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