Hi-Def cable TV capture?

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I'm looking at building an HTPC for a new HDTV. One of the things I would like is to be able to use it as a PVR to record HD programing at a reasonable cost. Is there any way for me to record HD cable streams to a PC without buying a separate PVR?

I assume there's some sort of encryption on the channels I pay for so that I can't just use a tuner to grab those, right?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

"I assume there's some sort of encryption on the channels I pay for so that I can't just use a tuner to grab those, right?"

What, for free? cmon

 

[Seekermeister]

I'm not really the one to ask, but I would imagine that any encoding is unencrypted once the signal reaches your TV. Therefore, I would imagine that any PVR, such as the Hauppauge PVR150 or others, would be able to record a program without any problems. Of course, you should have no problems with recording a HD signal received from a local channel from antenna either.l

 

[XMan]

If your cable company uses QAM, you can capture with a HD tuner card.

Some Motorola STB's have Firewire output, and you can use that, as well.

Check out www.avsforums.com for more info.

 

[Navid]

I have an ATI HDTV Wonder.
http://ati.amd.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html

I get channels over the air for free.
ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and a few others. I have saved HDTV programs to watch later and the quality of the saved file when watched is as good as the original program. At least, I cannot see any degradation.
The file is huge though. I just recorded 1 minute of an HDTV program from CBS. It is 109MB!

I expect you can do the same with a few cable channels if you have an HDTV tuner that has QAM capability (Fusion?).

 

[zainali]

u can get fusion5 or myhd mdp-130 for LOCAL QAM channels only. other stuff is encrypted.

or use the moto firewire method. posted on avsforum or sagetv forums.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Well from the looks of it I'm stuck with buying the overpriced HD-PVR my cable provider offers since the only STBs they offer are Pace and Scientific Atlanta. Basically I'm SOL for TSN, Sportsnet, and Discovery as far as I can tell.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Navid
I have an ATI HDTV Wonder.
http://ati.amd.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html

I get channels over the air for free.
ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and a few others. I have saved HDTV programs to watch later and the quality of the saved file when watched is as good as the original program. At least, I cannot see any degradation.
The file is huge though. I just recorded 1 minute of an HDTV program from CBS. It is 109MB!

I expect you can do the same with a few cable channels if you have an HDTV tuner that has QAM capability (Fusion?).

in theory this is impossible...There is obviously degradation unless you are capturing 300x200 size box...It is likely it is being captured to another codec. Eeven the PVR boxes your cable provider gives you is not storing it as true HD content.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: Duvie

Originally posted by: Navid
I have an ATI HDTV Wonder.
http://ati.amd.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html

I get channels over the air for free.
ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and a few others. I have saved HDTV programs to watch later and the quality of the saved file when watched is as good as the original program. At least, I cannot see any degradation.
The file is huge though. I just recorded 1 minute of an HDTV program from CBS. It is 109MB!

I expect you can do the same with a few cable channels if you have an HDTV tuner that has QAM capability (Fusion?).

in theory this is impossible...There is obviously degradation unless you are capturing 300x200 size box...It is likely it is being captured to another codec. Eeven the PVR boxes your cable provider gives you is not storing it as true HD content.

My monitor has a 1680X1050 resolution and I watch full screen. So, I get black bands at the top and the bottom (16X10 versus 16X9). But, I cannot see a difference. I know that there is degradation. But, it is not visible. At least not to me!

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Duviein theory this is impossible...There is obviously degradation unless you are capturing 300x200 size box...It is likely it is being captured to another codec. Eeven the PVR boxes your cable provider gives you is not storing it as true HD content.

In theory (and practice), you can record HDTV streams just fine with no degradation. You're not recording the uncompressed 1920x1080 video; recording an HD feed through a QAM tuner or a FW connection from a cable box gives you the compressed raw feed -- the exact same thing that is being broadcast OTA or transmitted through the cable/satellite network. It's only about 15-20Mbps.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Duviein theory this is impossible...There is obviously degradation unless you are capturing 300x200 size box...It is likely it is being captured to another codec. Eeven the PVR boxes your cable provider gives you is not storing it as true HD content.

In theory (and practice), you can record HDTV streams just fine with no degradation. You're not recording the uncompressed 1920x1080 video; recording an HD feed through a QAM tuner or a FW connection from a cable box gives you the compressed raw feed -- the exact same thing that is being broadcast OTA or transmitted through the cable/satellite network. It's only about 15-20Mbps.

Yup, the "captured" transport stream is a bit for bit copy of the original broadcast transport stream (similar to a DV transfer from your digicam to your hardrive). The HDTV Wonder itself does transcode on the fly to a proprietary ATI format (when using the ATI software)which is basically a superset of the original MPEG2 transport stream and still retains the original bits (in fact, you can use graphedit to capture the actual transport stream without it being tanscoded from the HDTV Wonder)