TV Recording like CTU and DIMENSION and lossless editing

[Strawson]

Hi I am from Canada and I am trying to record HD TV programs feeded by Canadian channels like world cup, sports programs, curling, etc. I am currently using the "Record HDTV on WinXP using Capdvhs via firewire" method but the quality I found wasn't that great. There are digital lines especially on movements (which sucks when you are recording a sports program). However, I saw TV recorded videos such as from CTU and DIMENSION and their recordings are pretty much flawless with no digital lines on movements. How do they record them? What method do they use?

Also I found problems on commercials. Are there any tools that can trim, split, and join 1080 ts files losslessly into one file so that I can then compress it into mkv or whatever I want?

Thanks

[edDV]

Hi I am from Canada and I am trying to record HD TV programs feeded by Canadian channels like world cup, sports programs, curling, etc. I am currently using the "Record HDTV on WinXP using Capdvhs via firewire" method but the quality I found wasn't that great. There are digital lines especially on movements (which sucks when you are recording a sports program). However, I saw TV recorded videos such as from CTU and DIMENSION and their recordings are pretty much flawless with no digital lines on movements. How do they record them? What method do they use?

Also I found problems on commercials. Are there any tools that can trim, split, and join 1080 ts files losslessly into one file so that I can then compress it into mkv or whatever I want?

Thanks

The firewire stream is identical to what the cable company gets off the satellite so there is no loss. If the feed is interlace 1080i, then you need to use a deinterlacing player like VLC (set deinterlace to Yadif) or Media Player Classic Home Theater which uses your display card's hardware deinterlace.

The channels you see as clear are probably broadcasting 1280x720p at 59.94 fps which is often used for sports channels.

Try HDTVtoMPeg2 to cut out commercials. Edits are at I frames (no loss) so expect about a half second accuracy on the edit. Then feed the result (TS or MPeg2) to your encoder (e.g. Handbreak).

[Strawson]

I've changed the player to VLC with deinterlacing option as yadif and now there's no more lines! The video is just as good as videos recorded by those like CTU and DIMENSION! Never knew the problem is from the video player's side instead of the file. Thanks a lot edDV for the help.

About the resolution you've mentioned, I found out that some programs that are being broadcasted both in US channels and in Canadian channels have different resolutions. Eg. sometimes programs in ABC which are broadcasted in 720 are in 1080 on CityTV! Sometimes it might be the other way around in which US is broadcasting 1080 and Canada 480 even in HD channels. I'm not sure if CityTV is just zooming the 720 source to 1080 or that they actually have the 1080 source, guess some Canadian TV recording pros would know. But still it's good to share this info.

[edDV]

I've changed the player to VLC with deinterlacing option as yadif and now there's no more lines! The video is just as good as videos recorded by those like CTU and DIMENSION! Never knew the problem is from the video player's side instead of the file. Thanks a lot edDV for the help.

About the resolution you've mentioned, I found out that some programs that are being broadcasted both in US channels and in Canadian channels have different resolutions. Eg. sometimes programs in ABC which are broadcasted in 720 are in 1080 on CityTV! Sometimes it might be the other way around in which US is broadcasting 1080 and Canada 480 even in HD channels. I'm not sure if CityTV is just zooming the 720 source to 1080 or that they actually have the 1080 source, guess some Canadian TV recording pros would know. But still it's good to share this info.

Yes the cable guys can change 720p to 1080i or visa versa to serve their needs. The issue is figuring out how they deliver it to you. Yadif works great on 480i as well for computer viewing. If you feed these to an HDTV, the TV will handle the deinterlace.

Try the other player to test how well your display card handles deinterlace.