HELP! - I want to record cable based HDTV (not OTA) on my HDD

If you want ease, the only option is to purchase a complete, new computer from one of the few vendors that offer CABLECARD. Unfortunately, CableCard is not an option for DIYers like most of us here. You can thank Cable Labs for that one.

If you want cheap, firewire is an option. This requires some third party software, and will only work for unencrypted HD stations IF your cable company offers them (no premium content).

I was just asking this same question in another thread. I would really like to know how to do this too. I realize all the issues with cable card, but aside from that, is there a way to receive either digital SD or digital HD channels (assumingly using a qam card) and any suggestions on what card, and software to use to do this??

I have the HD HomeRun and love it. But a word of caution... I get only a few channels more than what is available OTA. My cable company (and most of them) have encrypted all but a very few channels in QAM.

Yep...if you're OK just getting the big ones (ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/CW/PBS) then HDHR may work for you. I just got one last week and it is working great with VMC streaming to my xbox. What's really cool is it has 2 tuners built right in. If you want ESPN and Discovery HD etc you'll most likely need the cable card do-hickey.

How about using HDMI capture card from BlackMagicDesign (http://blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/) to capture non-encrypted signal if the cable box has HDMI output? I don't have cable but I have Dishnetwork HDTV receiver which has the HDMI output. Does anyone have experience with this HDMI capture card?

Firewire is an option, HDHR as mentioned above, and the R5000 mod.

I dont think it will work due to HDCP from dish?

But your HDTV understands anything coming out of a HDMI output; whether it is DISHNetwork, DirecTV or a cablebox...right?

I too am interested in the same thing, for HD DirecTV. I've noticed that Black Magic card before and wondered if anyone has tried it.

Cant you used component instead of HDMI to avoid HDCP problems?
hxxp://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hd/

Component and HDMI are both going to be uncompressed, which isn't realistic for a PVR. Plus, if you are actually interested in watching the content on something link an Xbox 360 you would need to convert the raw content to MPEG-2 or WMV first. By the time you mess with all of that plus spend that (at least) 2k for a capture card and hard drive arrays, you might as well just move to cable and CableCARD.

Chris

Are any 1st-tier vendors selling CableCard yet? Vista's been out for a long time now.

No, mid-March will start CableCARD machines. Dell is the only 1st-tier to actually annouce that they will have one, I'm sure others will follow.

BTW, Vista has been "out" less than a month. It was released on Jan 30th.

Chris

Sony has announced the VGX-XL3 that will support CableCARD and is taking pre-orders for mid-April delivery.

Good point! I always end up leaving Sony out. $3,300.

Chris

The easiest way to do this is the R5000HD modification from NextcomWireless. They put a USB 2.0 port on the back of your cable or dish box that you run into your PC and record anything.

R5000HD

Chris

No, Vista has been "out" since the end of November. It was just released to retail on Jan 30th.

There were plenty of ways you could get the full version of Vista (each edition) at the end of November.

Right, and since it was "released" in Jan that's the time that OEM's started to ship machines. Since CableLabs says only OEM's can ship OCUR's, you can't based them being around off of the time Vista RTMed.

Chris

I don't buy it.

Every large OEM (Dell, hp, etc.) had a copy of the released version of Vista on/by December 1. They could have easily sent a machine with Vista loaded to CableLabs on that date.

I'm sure they could, but why when OEM's don't ship machines to CableLabs in the first place? All they do is send a legal document to them.

You can not "buy it," all you want. But there are several things holding OEM's back from shipping machines. The release of Vista has less to do with it any anything.

Chris

Here's a great quote from Blackmagic Design's site:


Now you can afford the incredible quality of high definition at a standard definition price. DeckLink HD series capture cards support the highest quality 10 bit SDI or HDMI video. All cards also support 14 bit analog video, and switch between HD and SD instantly. With 3 different models available, you can connect to any deck, camera or monitor from only US$995

I guess "only" $1000 is "affordable" to some people but they probably also own a $20,000 projector that they got for the "bargain" price of $18,000.

Seems like HTPC's have been around long enough that there should be multiple solutions on the market for satellite TV subscribers in the $75-150 range.

I don't know how many times it needs to be mentioned before people stop clammering about a hdmi capture card (ie blackmagic). The r5000 is the cheapest and easiest way to record HD directly to a pc. There is even a nice interface with SageTV.

You are going to have nothing but headaches trying to capture hdmi especially if hdcp is involved.

The Blackmagic Design cards you are talking about are mainly for video capture related to non-linear video editing and production, not end user PVR type applications.

And yes, $995 IS dirt cheap as far as video capture cards go that are used this realm.

Andy

Thanks for your suggestion. But with r5000 you have to use a older directv receiver. If you get the blackmagic intensity card with HDCP striper it will not cost more than 500.00. But we are not sure if it will work.

If you have Direct you may have to use an old receiver. All the other providers (Dish, BEV,SC, cable) newer boxes can be modified. I just wanted to clarify that because you make it sound like an old Direct box is the "only" choice.

An important question you need to answer is what specifically do you want to record.

Do you want to record unencrypted HD shows? Or do you want to record encrypted HD Shows?

The next question would be: Which shows are encrypted and which are unencrypted. Since you have comcast, there's a good chance your local stations are unencrypted (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, FOX, etc..). There is a slim chance that your other HD stations are unencrypted (DiscoveryHD, ESPNHD, INHD, etc...) Premium HD channels are also pretty much encrypted.

You can look at the local Comcast thread for your area to see what is broadcasted in the clear, to determine if that covers what you want.

So, knowing this, if you want to record the encrypted stuff, your only options are Tivo Series 3 with cable card, Cable company's DVR box, and what people are talking about with Vista and Occur/cablecard, which no one has yet....

If you want to record unencrypted HD, you need to ask yourself if you want VCR functionality or if you want "tivo" like functionality, meaning guides, "season passes", etc...

Sage, MCE, Myth - Can provide you the Tivo like functionality with the HDHomeRun
MyHD130 - can do the same with the CW_EPG third party application
Fusion - Software sucks and is VCR functionality (my personal opinion), but the CW_EPG group is doing a new version which is supposed to support the Fusion.

Since you mention Media center and xbox360, I suggest going with the Windows MCE and HDHomeRun route as that's the most seamless integration that will give you what you want.

I do all 3 of the above (MyHD, Fusion, and HDHomeRun with MCE).

Hope that helps...

From what I read at the 5000 website, you can only mod Motorola cable boxes that do not have Firewire, which seems to be only a few older models. The newer DCT-64xx models have Firewire ports, and thus aren't moddable.

The scoop on HDTV content and HDCP is that while you can view and record HDTV content on your media center even OEM equipment such the Sony VGX-XL3 will not let you burn it in that quality to DVD, you are lucky enough to be able to burn it at all.

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) developed by Intel Corporation to control digital audio and video content as it travels across Digital Visual Interface (DVI), High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), or Unified Display Interface (UDI) connections. The specification is proprietary, and creating an implementation of HDCP requires a license. HDCP is licensed by Digital Content Protection, a subsidiary of Intel. In addition to paying fees, licensees agree to limit the capabilities of their products. For example, high-definition digital video content must be restricted to DVD quality on non-HDCP compliant video outputs when requested by the source. DVD-Audio content is restricted to DAT quality on non-HDCP digital audio outputs (analog audio outputs have no quality limits). Licensees cannot allow their devices to make copies of content, and must design their products in ways that "effectively frustrate attempts to defeat the content protection requirements.

So the reason why the OCUR tuner card etc are only available to OEM manufacturers is that the manufacturers are the ones that are able to apply this content protection security to their end product prior to shipping. Even if you reinstall the OS the OCUR tuner card will not work until it downloads and installs the required security updates from its designated location. It all makes sense.

you guys can always buy one of those black boxes that strips HDCP from the signal as well