TIVO DVD burner DVR 810H

Welcome, boravr6. I can't help you, but I know that some of a2kers have Tivo, and should be able to help out.

I'm not all that famaliar with the TIVO units but I suspect it isn't possible.

A DVD contains the movie with a copy protection scheme encoded into it. The production studios also use a feature similar to "Double burn" which actually packs twice as much data onto a DVD compared to what is possible to do with a commercial DVD burner.

To copy a DVD on a PC you have to rip the DVD to the hard drive, seperate the video tracks from the audio tracks, hack the encryption scheme, re-encode the video track (so that the entire video track will fit onto a single DVD) and then recombine the audio and video tracks before you can start the burning process.

All of the software necessary for those steps is missing from a TIVO unit which is why I don't think it can be done.

You might be right about that, but i strongly think there is away. Look at it this way. With this unit I can Burn any TV program onto a DVDr. OK, say I do that, Then shouldn't I ne able to make a copy of that disk, I would think this $600 unit would allow that, but i cant figure that out.

Maybe Im in denial, but I have a feeling there is a way

TV programs don't have the copy protection scheme built into them like a commercial DVD does.

Believe me, if a TIVO could copy a DVD movie people would buy them just to sit around and pirate DVDs instead of going through all the expense and trouble of burning them on a PC.

You'd have to hack your tivo. . . and, frankly, while I think you COULD do it, tivo's not quite old enough yet for the hacking to be sophisticated and reliable. . . I definitely wouldn't recommend doing it yourself, anyway.

Fishin's right about the copy protection. . . it's not macrovision, like DVD players. I don't remember the exact name, but I do remember hearing complaints that it was complicated enough that macrovision-style hacking would be unlikely.

Your one possibility might be in movies that aren't broadcast under protection, or somehow being able to trick the tivo into thinking movies are tv shows (but since tivo's know everything, it might be difficult). I'm not sure exactly how they send the movies encoded. They may not and the tivo may just be programmed not to burn anything it considers a movie. Getting around that would be a hardware hack, which I'd think would be even harder than hacking the unit itself. . .

For now, I'd say give it up. . . wait a while until tivo hackers, and I know they're out there, have more time to work their magic. . .

OK, so if you can't burn dvds with this Tivo unit, what home entertainment unit is on the market right now that allows yu to burn a dvd to a dvdr. Im not talking about a unit for a computer, instead more of a home entertainment item.

hmm. . . DVD burners, like Philips, are the only non-computer units I know of. . . and they require a legally bought dvd to copy onto a dvr. . . and they're still very expensive.

There isn't one. The copy protection schema is built in the DVD palyers and recorders themselves so any unit made that uses a production DVD player/burner has the copy protection included by default. To get away from that you'd have to go to a manufacturing unit which would be in the multiple hundreds of thousands of $$ range.

DVD player/burner makers HAVE TO include the copy protection schema in their firmware to be able to sell the units. If they don't they are in volation of the Digital Millenuim Copyright Act and International Copyright Law. This is the same reason there isn't any commercially available PC software that removes the copy protection completely. The sale of such a product would be illegal.

Well, fishin, if you just want to copy dvds, software is available, and recording equiptment like philips's dvd recorder exist. . . though I doubt making copies of legally owned dvds is exactly what he wants to do. . . :-)

The duplicators (like the ones Phillips and Pioneer put out) will only duplicate single layer DVDs (4.7MB). Commercial DVD movies are double layer (9.4MB) so the DVD Duplicator can read them but it can't write the same data back to the new disc.

There is software (like DVDXCopy) and even those have quirks. DVDXCopy is one of the few that will read double-layer DVDs and write to a new disc but it copies them to two discs and rewrites an authentication code to the new DVDs so that they can be tracked back to the original owner of the DVDXCopy software (that's how that get around the DMCA). It reads the original disc and inserts a pause with a prompt screen to tell you to insert the 2nd disc to finish watching your movie. Other single application software that is used to copy DVDs barfs on Commercial movie DVDs.

If you know of a better app. I'd love to hear of it because I'd REALLY like to be able to back up my DVDs with my DVD burner! lol

There's a new version of xcopy out, actually. . . try techtv, because they did a review of it and liked it a lot. . . it's kinda pricey. . . but what it does is compress the dvds onto one disc, so the quality's not top-notch, but it's still supposed to be pretty good. . . let me see if I can find a link. . .

Ah, here you go. . . DVD X Copy Xpress. . . I'm still trying to figure out if posting links here is legal without first coding them, but here you go (you're a moderator, you can just fix it if it's illegal :-)):

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/products/story/0,24330,3498714,00.html

Nearly all prerecorded DVD's are copy protected and I don't believe the copying software can get around that. One can make copies of DVD that they make. I have a GO videotape and DVD player that will copy DVD's onto tape but I've only been able to copy a couple of tapes that aren't copy protected. The Pioneer TIVO and DVD burner was discussed here (it won't copy DVD's -- you'd have to have two trays for that anyway):

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14093

LW - both my DvD's seem to have crashed this weekend - one was only half-way - it still plays only purchased DvD's now - it won't play a CDR or VCD or the other one for some reason won't even power-up. I just bought a
Sony DVP-PQ2 - since I pack it all over the place.

It doen't have progressive but has features like a Precision Drive 2 System with Dynamic Tilt Compensation, DVD-RW/-R (Video Mode), DVD+RW/+R, and MP3/CD-R/CD-RW Playback, TV Virtual surround with 4 Surround Modes,

Well thanks everyone for being so imfomative about this. Im new to this forum and I like it, thanks again guys.

That's a good idea, Husker (I assume the SONY is one of the portables with it's own LCD screen but can be plugged into an outside monitor?) Progressive only really shows an improvement in quality in screens over 30" -- I doubt anyone could tell the difference on a smaller screen. The rear projection screens show up more of the error caused by not having progressive scan.

Okay, husker, is that you today or twenty years ago?

baravro - Welcome to A2K and ENJOY!

http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=304101