HD capture card with set-top box

[whitewarrior11]

Hello everyone,

I would like to get a confirmation from someone before actually going out and buy the HD PVR 2 from Hauppauge.

I am in Canada so cablecard is out. To record, on my PC, a TV show that has been recorded on my cable company PVR, I have to connect the Component Out from my set-top box to the component in of the HD PVR 2. And I have to actually "play" the show and record it live, right?

I can't do that through HDMI because the set-top box sends an encrypted signal through HDMI, right?

Thank you for helping me! If you know of another way to "transfer" recorded shows on my PC, let me know.

 

[Ebernanut]

I have the Colossus which is the internal(PCIe) version of the PVR and I believe they both have the same features. The colossus has an IR blaster that you can set up to change channels on a cable box(some cable boxes are problematic) through whatever software you're using, obviously that won't work for something recorded to a DVR so you will have to play and record it manually.

HDMI won't work for HDCP encrypted content because the PVR and Col. don't support HDCP, if they did they would have to preserve the HDCP encryption and you wouldn't be able to edit or transfer HDCP content(the Ceton card has this restriction). What channels use HDCP depends on your cable company but premium channels are more likely to be encrypted, last time I checked only HBO was encrypted here. Content that isn't HDCP encrypted works fine with HDMI, component doesn't support HDCP so it just doesn't use it and thus doesn't have that limitation. Of course component doesn't support 1080p so you're limited to 1080i or 720p but most cable companies don't broadcast in 1080p anyways to save bandwidth. I'm using component partially because of the HDCP thing, partially because my cable box only has one HDMI port, and also because picture quality was very close between the two(HDMI looked slight undersaturated and washed out and component looked slightly oversaturated and had a small amount of color bleed in certain extreme contrast situations).

On a side note I would recommend the Colossus over the PVR unless you don't have room for an internal card(it does produce a small amount of heat) or you want to be able to plug things in quickly without getting in behind your computer.

 

[whitewarrior11]

Thanks a lot for the info!