Recording from Tivo Series 2 RCA input

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=280898

 

The post from stevel in that thread is about copying recordings from a VCR to a TiVo - if that's what you're asking. I'm not 100% sure that's the question.

Basically, you tell the TiVo that it's recording from something it expects (cable or satellite box) that's connected via the connector that is really attached to the VCR.

 

To record off a premium channel, you'd have to use your cable box.

The cable box will have to feed into the TiVo, and the TiVo will need to go thru setup again and be told it's now working with a cable box.

You WILL need to change your wiring, if you want this to work from now on.

Alternative:

As someone suggested, you might be able to leave things as they are and use the RCA outputs on your VCR to feed into the RCA inputs on your TiVo.

You'd have to set the cable box to the premium channel, have the VCR turned on and feeding its picture and sound from the cable box out thru the RCA outputs.

The TiVo WILL have to go thru guided setup again, even for this, because now you'll have to tell it it's working both with straight cable AND with its RCA inputs.

I'm not sure what options would allow for that...maybe telling it you're using satellite and an antenna, but then you'd lose the ability to record cable channels from your cable...you'd only get OTA channels.

I'm not sure you can set the TiVo up to work with satellite and cable at the same time.

Anyway, whatever you trick it into thinking is coming thru the RCA jacks, that'll be wrong, and the program descriptions will be wrong in "Now Playing" and due to the timing of the recordings, you'd likely have to use only manual recordings and put in the time and signal source yourself.

One question-

You say you have "many shows that tape".

Did you actually mean "tape", as in you do this on the VCR, or did you mean "record" as in you're recording on your TiVo?

All in all, it really might be best if you just change your wiring setup so the TiVo will work off the cable box, because that way it'll record the premium channels easilly, and your NOW PLAYING info will be correct.

Shows you want to keep you'll be able to feed from the TiVo to the VCR thru RCA lines.

 

I don't understand how the plugging described in the last paragraph isn't changing the wiring as you said you couldn't do in the first, but yes, you can do this.

 

I did this once, but the setup is a PITA. As noted in several previous posts, the trick is to tell TiVo in setup that you have both a cable without box AND a cable or satellite converter box. Telling it you have the converter box is what activates the RCA inputs. To make this change (or to change it back) you have to go through full guided setup. You don't need to change it back if you will be using those inputs regularly, but I did want to note that there is no way to tell TiVo you no longer have a converter box without re-doing the guided setup.

That part isn't too bad. The ugly part is that TiVo will then activate ALL of the channel lineup that is supposed to be available with the particular cable or satellite system you claim to have in the setup. You will need at least one of these channels active in your lineup; because, to record from the RCA inputs you need to tune the TiVo to one of the channels supposedly on the converter box.

Here is why this is so ugly - if you don't remove all of those fake channels from your channel lineup (long tedious process for hundreds of new channels you don't really get) you will drive yourself mad searching through the Guide to find what you really want. Even worse, all of your wish lists and season passes will look at these fake channels too, and you will often get no recording when TiVo tries to use one of them. Lastly, when you do make a recording from the RCA input, the title in the TiVo menu and program information will be whatever TiVo thinks was SUPPOSED to really be on that channel at that time.

Good luck!
Goose