Recording TV

M

mrdonbonjovi

n00b
Joined
Nov 10, 2006
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Just a few clarifications... I have a digital cable box and a satilite box. If I wanted to record these I would run a cable from their outputs to an input on a TV tuner. Now I understand there aren't any cards capible of capturing HD except over the air. How do I go about recording this video/show/whatever in the best quality (is it possible in MCE?)... And what card would you guys reccomend to do this?
 
I'm not a guru here, and I have just started mucking around with the HTPC thing, but you can record HD content analog but not digital. Best bet would be with component outputs, but I don't know what card would have component inputs that you can use to record from. Also your software may limit you. I am using GBPVR (free) and I have yet to find a way to record from my composite inputs with my setup.
 
Your best input quality is going to be from S-video. None of the current tuner cards support recording from anything better quality than that.

For HDTV you can record OTA (Over the air) ONLY*



* Unencrypted QAM from a cable company is possible but not in MCE and is a whole new can of worms.
 
It might be worth having a look through Lyngsat to see if any satellites over NA have free to air channels. If they do, you can just slap a satellite card in your HTPC and record anything you like, from VCR quality through to IMax since it's all just a data stream then. A handy search keyword is DVB-S.

Of course, that's assuming that NA has any FTA satellites. If the cable f.anb.oys are anything to go by, NA only has cable. DVB-S seems to be a Europe thing. (And a New Zealand thing, too.)
 
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