Cheapest way to record OTA HD channels?

[daveymark]

Anyone have recommendations on what to get? It looks like an HD DVR standalone costs around $300 at least. Can I just get one of those pci cards and pop it in my PC and be good to go?

I have comcast basic(local channels), I get HD over the air, and I think in order for me to get their DVR for $10/month, I'd have to upgrade to basic cable, which I can't afford. Anyone have suggestions?

 

[Matt2]

Edited for the sake of not looking dumb... although my post is quoted below

 

[daveymark]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I work at Target and we have some really cheap DVRs there if you are willing to buy an off brand like "Trutech"

what do you mean by cheap? I haevn't seen a retail HD DVR below $350 except for that RCA one where you need a special port on yor tv for it to work

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: daveymark

Originally posted by: Matt2
I work at Target and we have some really cheap DVRs there if you are willing to buy an off brand like "Trutech"

what do you mean by cheap? I haevn't seen a retail HD DVR below $350 except for that RCA one where you need a special port on yor tv for it to work

Crap... Sorry, I jumped the gun without comprehending your entire post.

We dont ahve any HD DVRs.. my bad. Dont I feel like the jackass!

 

[xtknight]

Yes, get a PCI card to record OTA HDTV to your hard disk. By far the cheapest.

 

[destrekor]

you need a pci card that has an hd tuner
regular tuners don't offer HD
and even then, the tuners only support OTA, so if you ever do upgrade to cable with HD channels, it wouldnt work

search around for the Dvico FusionHDTV

 

[daveymark]

anyone know about this one: it's $60

Text

 

[Farfle]

Probably the best place to look is www.avsforum.com

It's the number one place for this kind of stuff. Do a search on their forums for that Air2PC card (I was considering getting one of those a long time ago, but opted not to for no good reason besides being a cheapskate).

Currently, you can only receive unencrypted HD channels via Cable and Satellite using cards like the FusionHD and MyHD. Both of those cards offer QAM demodulation, which is used in unencrypted Cable HD channels (like ABC, NBC, etc, etc. ESPN HD, Discovery HD, HBO HD are most likely encrypted by your cable company, and can't be viewed by one of those PC cards above). So, depending on your CAble company, and which channels they choose to encrypt, it is possible to watch certain HD content via Cable.

And don't bother about asking about Component/DVI-input capable cards. These don't exist, except in the absurdly expensive professional world.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: Farfle
And don't bother about asking about Component/DVI-input capable cards. These don't exist, except in the absurdly expensive professional world.

this is really lame

 

[kylebisme]

It isn't they make them expesive to upset anyone. It takes some really complex hardware to capture uncompressed HD, and desktop PCs generally don't have to handle streeming it to disk anyway so there isn't much of a market at this point either. So the price is high for now, but that will change in time.

 

[RobsTV]

Many cards work fine.
For your needs, a Sasem OnAir USB2 (or similar) will do the trick.
It has Digital + Analog shared input, and a second digital only input.
You can use it for antenna OTA HDTV, as well as QAM HDTV from cable company.
Also allows non-digital channels from cable or antenna at the same time, thanks to additional input.

Note that you will of course need a lot of Hard drive space.
Here HDTV recording from QAM/Ant/Sat is using about 9 gig per hour.

Since it was mentioned in another response, for sat nearly ANY $80 DVB-S software card will provide full PVR/DVR HDTV features.
I use Skystar2, Twinhan 1020a, and Twinhan Starbox. All work great.

AVS forum is a joke for HDTV PC's. Too many clueless experts. Most people that really do this stuff for a living every day have no use or time for those rainy day experts, so the real experts will either rarely post there, or will never post there. Best to google ideas that are areas of interest, then go to a dedicated forum that relates only to the subject you desire to research. Visit forums where the programmers of the software hang out, and you will quickly find out how stuff is supposed to work.

 

[xtknight]

Note DVB cards are for countries that transmit DVB. North America uses the ATSC standard. Japan uses ISDB.

Originally posted by: RobsTV
AVS forum is a joke for HDTV PC's. Too many clueless experts. Most people that really do this stuff for a living every day have no use or time for those rainy day experts, so the real experts will either rarely post there, or will never post there. Best to google ideas that are areas of interest, then go to a dedicated forum that relates only to the subject you desire to research. Visit forums where the programmers of the software hang out, and you will quickly find out how stuff is supposed to work.

I agree...it's just another forum with self-proclaimed experts on it. I never did get any decent advice there. Remember that big DLP blows omfgbbq thread?

--------------------------------------

Edit: Please never mind what was here (I removed the stupid part). I just realized something really stupid. Please spare my dignity and don't quote it.

 

[daveymark]

it's interesting, that's for sure

 

[SynthDude2001]

I usually pop into these threads to give my input, but it looks like everything has pretty much been said already.

I've got a MyHD MDP-130 that I'm very happy with, although I am considering a trade for a FusionHDTV 5 Lite (+cash). As long as you live near a reasonably large city, OTA reception shouldn't be a problem for you. Do check out antennaweb.org though, to see how far away and in which direction your local broadcast towers are. HDTV recording is quite easy (it's already an MPEG2-encoded transport stream, you just save it to your hard drive), but as others have said it takes up a lot of space. 5-8gb/hr depending on the bitrate of the station you're recording (up to twice that if you're recording a QAM cable channel with two HD subchannels).

 

[daveymark]

well, I ended up just getting the comcast HD DVR. for $10 a month I can't complain...now I just have to find a way to bring the shows on to my PC

 

[erwos]

Check to see if your STB DVR has a Firewire port (and possibly a serial port). If it does, there's a good chance you're in luck. I believe there are some drivers around that'll work in MCE 2005.

-Erwos