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Question for the technical ones!
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Posted by: chrisrobbo

Techies,

I work in a large pharmaceutical company, which by law must show various health and safety videos to people coming to work on site. There are about 50 videos, all for different types of people. ie. Visitors, Lorry Drivers, Scaffolders, the list is endless. As is the problem with VHS, the tapes are constantly being damaged due to their high usage, etc etc.

My questions being,

Is it possible to transfer these tapes (Which the company own the rights too, as they paid to get them recorded) onto tivo?

If it is possible, how does Tivo recognise the video (What channel does it record on)?

Also, what would the title be in the 'Now Playing' list?

Is it possible to edit these titles?

I also take it for granted a subscription would not be necessary as once all the tapes are added to tivo, it will only be playing.

The benefits are obvious, but if the above is possible, can anyone see any problems that would be encountered.

Chris
'Looking to impress his bosses by saving a few pennies' :D

Posted by: HX|

Is it possible to transfer these tapes (Which the company own the rights too, as they paid to get them recorded) onto tivo?

Yes.

If it is possible, how does Tivo recognise the video (What channel does it record on)?

Just plug in via Aux.

Also, what would the title be in the 'Now Playing' list?

Yes.

Is it possible to edit these titles?

Not from the Tivo no, from the PC - maybe I dunno. :>

I also take it for granted a subscription would not be necessary as once all the tapes are added to tivo, it will only be playing.

Hrm, you should be able to record them during grace period, set them all to save until delete then still continue to use them whilst out of subs. Don't take my word for it tho'. :>

The main problem would be with them not having a meaningful title in Now Playing.

Posted by: chrisrobbo

[Q]

Just plug in via Aux.

[/Q]

Ok then, I plug in via Aux then press play on the video, what do I do with Tivo?

Posted by: RobBellis

quote:
Originally posted by chrisrobbo
[Q]

Just plug in via Aux.

[/Q]

Ok then, I plug in via Aux then press play on the video, what do I do with Tivo?

Yuu would set up a manual recording on the TiVo recording *ANY* channel that would be delivered via SCART ( i.e. Sky, or cable etc. )

Initially the Title shown in now playing would be whatever was showing on the channel you chose to be recorded. This can be changed. You will need either a TiVoNET or a PPP over serial connection to the TiVo, and to run TiVoWEB on your box. This would allow you to easily change the programme title.

Now, a subscription is not required ( I believe ) to play back recordings made in the grace period, however after that you would not be able to add any more recordings as that functionality is disable, and there are nag screens about subscribing on most keypresses. e-mail me for more details rob.bellis@up4it.com

Rgds,

R.

Posted by: GarySargent

You might be better getting something more suited to what you want to use it for - such as a DVD writer, or hard-disc recorder (not a PVR) eg the one by JVC.

Posted by: SteveA

Not nice to buy a TiVo and not subscribe. It hurts TiVo in the wallet.

Posted by: hazydaze

I have to agree with Gary, I don't think Tivo is the right tool for this job.

Still, do you have one for home use. They really are very good you know :)

Posted by: chrisrobbo

I fully understand that Tivo is not ideal, but neither is a DVD burner. One of the benefits of the idea is to do away with the media. Find the write disc etc. The idea of having the whole thing in one box was what I was thinking of.

As it having a negative impact due to the lack of subscription, taking into account the an initial purchase of the Tivo will be made. And no further services will be necessary, ie Listings or serice updates, I really cant see the problem.

Maybe its a future product idea for the business market. I PVR that stores and plays videos, but has no functionality to record domestic TV. Just an Idea!

Posted by: Bateman

Couldn't you get a PC with a video output and input card. Digitise the programs as mpegs on the hard drive and knock up a simple director presentation that allows you to choose the program to show?

Posted by: bounderboy

The problem with not subscribing is that TIVO actually make a loss on every unit sold. The technology in there is expensive, they aim to get there money back from subs, much the same as the Games Console manafactuers make money back on Games Software.. hence no subscritpion does hurt tivo

quote:
Originally posted by Bateman
Couldn't you get a PC with a video output and input card. Digitise the programs as mpegs on the hard drive and knock up a simple director presentation that allows you to choose the program to show?

This indeed is a good idea.. sorry to tout for business but we can do this for you very easily - contact rob@steamtv.co.uk

Cheers

Rob

Posted by: hazydaze

Just beware--once your trial period is over you really won't be able to record any new videos to the HD. It is a deliberate limit on the functionality.

Posted by: RIG

quote:
There are about 50 videos, all for different types of people

The answer is pay a facility company to transfer them to DVD with a menu, I author DVDs all the time. If they are training films then they are only going to be 5 to 10mins each so you could fit them all on 2 or 3 DVDs. If they were on TiVo you would be limited to using just that unit. On DVD any player would do.

Posted by: rboldon

To be honest,

You should encode all your videos into windows media format or Real player format......if you are a mac house then Quicktime may be for you......

this will get you an instantly recallable collection for your users to have.

For example:

Company X has 50 hours of Health and Safety material on VHS.....

Lets say that they are a PC house win win2k as desktop client and win2k servers etc.....or a mix

for the cost of a video capture card........anything by Pinnacle or Matrox will do nicely....(say Ł300) and a good quality VCR (say Ł300) you can begin to capture the programme content........

Lets take Windows Media as an example (as company x is a pc house with win2k on the desktop it is likely that all clients will have windows media player....)

Download windows media encoder from
www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia

its free..

I'd suggest 320 x 240 25fps @ 500Kb/s as settings......
Choose Windows Media Video 7 codec and audio 7 codec.

Then you must encode each programme.....pretty much a real time process....then you have an archive of around 10Gb........@200Mb per hour.

Part II

Speak nicely to your server guys...get them to put the windows media services on a win2k server and give you access to the asfroot directory.

Put all the media file into this directory......

you can now give out a URL to the programmes in an email perhaps or even write a page for health and safety on your intranet.........

The URL will look like mms://yourservername/yourfilename.wmv

This can form the basis for a very powerful inhouse communication service all for the one off cost of Ł600.....the server licence covers the serving and the desktop licence for win2k covers the client...

I have possibly over simplified this too much.....

Feel free to mail me off thread if I can help you further........multicast.....finetune encoding settings......batch encode etc...

robin@chimeradigital.com

Hope this helps

R