RE: Tivo as a CCTV recorder

["Kevin Hawkins" <lists@xxxxxxx>]

This is indeed the way to do it. Using IR is a bad move as the
synchronisation with Tivo's menus can't be guaranteed. I have a number
of Tivos that act as VCR's on my security cameras. Although it is not
working quite the way I wanted yet (time issue) here is how I intend it
fitting together.

            I have a
Tivo for each external camera and I record every
camera all the time in the round robin fashion mentioned before. Each
camera has a trigger associated with it and each trigger comes from one
of four sources. I have some break beam detectors, a driveway vehicle
detector and some PIR's. Additionally on each camera I use motion
detection software. When a trigger condition occurs then I make a note
of the time and the camera in a log which makes referring to the event
much easier. I would then use the web interface to alter the recording
that is currently being made from being 'save until space is needed' to
'Save until I delete' - I was hoping to be able to change the title of
the recording to the time of the event too but I need to handle
multiple
events within one recording too. I am not sure if this can be done.

            Now a
periodic scan of the Now Playing files on the Tivo
shows me immediately which segments have any events in them and by
referring to the log I can FF to the exact spots in the recording that
are of interest as the minute marker is in synch with the recording
time. When an event is viewed and known to be of no concern or indeed
can be 'automatically' determined to be of no interest then the
recording is set back to delete when needed or even deleted
immediately.
Such an 'automatic' situation is most times when the alarm was not set
and the front door was opened either immediately before or after the
event (visitors) or where the alarm was set immediately prior to the
event or unset immediately after the event (leaving/entering house).
Very key events are when the triggers occur whilst the alarm is set
either to away or night particularly. I had intended that the recording
title flagged these too.

Theoretically I guess you don't need to record all the time as starting
a recording should preserve the 30 minute previous buffer which is
vital. However your time stamping of events gets messed up when you
later want to view triggers. The first one should be 30 mins in exactly
but later ones will need calculating. You can also use just one Tivo
with some form of camera switching if needed based on triggers.



Just to mention there is also a UKHA_Tivo group for these and other
Tivo
related issues.



           
Kevin





-----Original Message-----
From: James,Daniel [mailto:Daniel.James@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: 07 January 2003 10:31
To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Tivo as a CCTV recorder




>What about having HV/Homeseer issue an IR command to the Tivo to
record
the
>current channel (Pressing the record button on the peanut)? I don't
know if
>the tivo would allow this without knowing when the "program"
started or
ends
>but there might be a workaround for this.

<Thinking outloud>

Is there not a way of using the web interface to do this? 

I am sure I saw something on the tivoweb site about this... in an ideal
world it would let you send a command in the URL.. 

Otherwise you could bring up the webpage with the remote control on it,
and
use something like autoIt to script a keypress on the screen.

This would be easy to script from homeseer...

</Thinking outloud>


Regards

Daniel

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