Good Video card with DVI-in

[TheGizmo]

so i'm using this giant lcd as my monitor and i want to watch hdtv at the same time (multi-task) so instead of hook up both to seperate inputs i'd rather just watch the hdtv in a window on my computer.. anyone have any experience with this? thanks in advance.

 

[Rage187]

Probably have to do it through compnent in as I can't think of a single video card w/ DVI in.

 

[TheGizmo]

doh thats a bummer.. whats a good card with component input.. mainly for PQ... i don't do much 3d at all.. no games, only applications, music, movies, tv. thanks.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: TheGizmo
doh thats a bummer.. whats a good card with component input.. mainly for PQ... i don't do much 3d at all.. no games, only applications, music, movies, tv. thanks.

I'm almost certain that there aren't any consumer-level cards with Component input either. The only real video inputs available these days on video cards are still 480i S-Video and Composite, unfortunately.

 

[TheGizmo]

double bummer.. i guess i'll have to chose between the two.. but i just seem to have the need of both... i mean what do i do when things are 'doing stuff' on the computer.. and how do i look up all the goofy stuff i see on tv.. doh.. back to the drawing board :beer:

 

[TheGizmo]

figure i'd try this one more time to see if anyone has any suggestions... bump

 

[Peter]

Nope, nothing. HDTV input would be WAY over the head of the bus infrastructure in a normal PC anyway.

 

[kylebisme]

I know there are ways to record HDTV over firewire, there is probably programs that let you watch llive TV that way too though I don't know details on any of that as my cable company disables the firewire port on their STBs.

 

[Hikari]

My Comcast HDTV box outputs over firewire. You can use vlc to watch the channels, too, although the remote for the cable box has to be used to change the channel. And there is a program called capDVHS that will let you record the stream, even setup times to do it, etc.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Hikari
My Comcast HDTV box outputs over firewire. You can use vlc to watch the channels, too, although the remote for the cable box has to be used to change the channel. And there is a program called capDVHS that will let you record the stream, even setup times to do it, etc.

That's almost certainly in a compressed transport stream format though (generally 19mbits/sec or less). If the OP has such a cable box (with a working, enabled firewire output), then that's definitely a possibility - not a direct video input, since as Peter pointed out, uncompressed HDTV input would require more bandwidth than we have today (at least in the PCI world - not sure about PCI-E). But if he doesn't have a cable box with working firewire (or if his HDTV source is something else, like maybe a simple set-top OTA tuner), then he's basically out of luck.

 

[Rage187]

Originally posted by: Hikari
My Comcast HDTV box outputs over firewire. You can use vlc to watch the channels, too, although the remote for the cable box has to be used to change the channel. And there is a program called capDVHS that will let you record the stream, even setup times to do it, etc.

I did the above for awhile, recording over firewire to my PC.

There is a way in VLC or capDVHS to have it display what it's recording. But you better have a big harddrive as I believe it was 6-8 gig's and hour worth of recording. I could fit 3-5mins of recording on a 650mb cd

But it does look phenominal.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
I know there are ways to record HDTV over firewire, there is probably programs that let you watch llive TV that way too though I don't know details on any of that as my cable company disables the firewire port on their STBs.

That's already a data-reduced MPEG stream. When you're grabbing HDTV or DVI from another device's screen output, that's uncompressed full frame information - and the data rates for that are HUGE.

 

[Rage187]

Football games were 30-40 gigs.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Peter

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
I know there are ways to record HDTV over firewire, there is probably programs that let you watch llive TV that way too though I don't know details on any of that as my cable company disables the firewire port on their STBs.

That's already a data-reduced MPEG stream. When you're grabbing HDTV or DVI from another device's screen output, that's uncompressed full frame information - and the data rates for that are HUGE.

Sure, but a lot of "HD" brodcasts are already much lower than full quality anyway; and firewire is still a giant step up from the down converter to letterboxed 880i over s-video alterntive like I am stuck with for capturing HDTV.

 

[TheGizmo]

Originally posted by: Hikari
My Comcast HDTV box outputs over firewire. You can use vlc to watch the channels, too, although the remote for the cable box has to be used to change the channel. And there is a program called capDVHS that will let you record the stream, even setup times to do it, etc.

Sweet, that is the information I was looking for before actually.. my box has firewire enabled, I'm going to give vlc a shot. Thanks for the tips everyone. :beer:

 

[Vernor]

MyHD MDP-100

 

[TheGizmo]

Originally posted by: Vernor
MyHD MDP-100

Another sweet lead... I have all sorts of ideas on how to get HDTV on my PC, thanks for the suggestions everyone.. apparently there are a few HDTV PCI Decoder cards, programs to view via Firewire.. guess I don't need a new video card afterall

 

[Hikari]

Well, VLC says my hidef programs are 25mb/s anyway. And the quality looks 100% as good as it does if I hook it up via component. Agree on it doesn't work for anyone, but its a great solution in Comcast markets.

 

[Hikari]

Originally posted by: TheGizmo

Originally posted by: Hikari
My Comcast HDTV box outputs over firewire. You can use vlc to watch the channels, too, although the remote for the cable box has to be used to change the channel. And there is a program called capDVHS that will let you record the stream, even setup times to do it, etc.

Sweet, that is the information I was looking for before actually.. my box has firewire enabled, I'm going to give vlc a shot. Thanks for the tips everyone. :beer:

Check this thread on avsforum. It has links to the software and the drivers you'll need to install in XP. The firewire picture is a lot better than I was getting via a component to vga adapter as well.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=403695

Here is another for you, too:
http://www.furrygoat.com/2004/06/comcast_hdtv_on.html

Stars HD, inHD, and HBO HD all work fine and I can record them. Even the non-HD programs look pretty good if you record them. HD stuff uses a lot of space on disk though, I don't do it too often (I just watch it live on VLC).

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Peter

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
I know there are ways to record HDTV over firewire, there is probably programs that let you watch llive TV that way too though I don't know details on any of that as my cable company disables the firewire port on their STBs.

That's already a data-reduced MPEG stream. When you're grabbing HDTV or DVI from another device's screen output, that's uncompressed full frame information - and the data rates for that are HUGE.

The firewire simply transfers the compressed broadcast transport stream. Its bit for bit the same as the original transport stream. You can "capture" the transport stream to a D-VHS deck, or even your hardrive if you have the correct setup. Its no different than using an PC HDTV card to capture transport streams from OTA broadcasts. The transport streams are not data-reduced, they are digital copies of the original.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: Peter

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
I know there are ways to record HDTV over firewire, there is probably programs that let you watch llive TV that way too though I don't know details on any of that as my cable company disables the firewire port on their STBs.

That's already a data-reduced MPEG stream. When you're grabbing HDTV or DVI from another device's screen output, that's uncompressed full frame information - and the data rates for that are HUGE.

The firewire simply transfers the compressed broadcast transport stream. Its bit for bit the same as the original transport stream. You can "capture" the transport stream to a D-VHS deck, or even your hardrive if you have the correct setup. Its no different than using an PC HDTV card to capture transport streams from OTA broadcasts. The transport streams are not data-reduced, they are digital copies of the original.

He's saying it's data-reduced from the full uncompressed stuff they get from the TV studio's DV camcorder. To transfer 19Mbps compressed MPEG-2 is pretty easy but not uncompressed video (and DVI would be an uncompressed bitmap AFAIK).

I wish we saw DVI-in and YPbPr-in too because I'm in the same situation but the bandwidth requirement is just too much. Godfrey Cheng (the AVIVO guy) said ATI had no plans to release YPbPr (component) input devices. Effectively then, there's no decent way to transfer HD to a PC unless you're lucky enough to have a Firewire device to do it (or an HDTV tuner card).

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: Peter

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
I know there are ways to record HDTV over firewire, there is probably programs that let you watch llive TV that way too though I don't know details on any of that as my cable company disables the firewire port on their STBs.

That's already a data-reduced MPEG stream. When you're grabbing HDTV or DVI from another device's screen output, that's uncompressed full frame information - and the data rates for that are HUGE.

The firewire simply transfers the compressed broadcast transport stream. Its bit for bit the same as the original transport stream. You can "capture" the transport stream to a D-VHS deck, or even your hardrive if you have the correct setup. Its no different than using an PC HDTV card to capture transport streams from OTA broadcasts. The transport streams are not data-reduced, they are digital copies of the original.

He's saying it's data-reduced from the full uncompressed stuff they get from the TV studio's DV camcorder. To transfer 19Mbps compressed MPEG-2 is pretty easy but not uncompressed video (and DVI would be an uncompressed bitmap AFAIK).

I wish we saw DVI-in and YPbPr-in too because I'm in the same situation but the bandwidth requirement is just too much. Godfrey Cheng (the AVIVO guy) said ATI had no plans to release YPbPr (component) input devices. Effectively then, there's no decent way to transfer HD to a PC unless you're lucky enough to have a Firewire device to do it (or an HDTV tuner card).

What? He was responding to snowman's post, and he's not correct. Transport streams are broadcast compressed, why someone would want to do capture of the decoded, uncompressed HD video streams, rather than transfer a bit perfect copy of the video stream is beyond me, as I've explained before PC's don't have the throughput or storage to handle it even if ATI or anybody else did supprt it.