Satellite capturing

[tgc225]

I was reading this interesting topic:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=190360

And I noticed people talking about how a DirecTivo combo captures the exact satellite stream, and a guy mentioned about how he extracted the video and noticed it was 480x480.

Anyway, my question: Is it possible to extract the video from the DirecTivo system, and then make a DVD without having to re-encode that video? I noticed it was mentioned that the video was 480x480, which I know is not standard DVD resolution, but is standard SVCD resolution, so would it still work? Would the audio need to be converted?

It seems like this method yields the highest picture quality out of any current consumer solution (all other capturing systems re-encode the already lossy MPEG2 stream, so you go down two generations). Is this correct?

Is this something that is relatively easy to do, or does it require a lot of technical knowledge and modifcation of the DirecTivo unit?

[sammie]

It is possible, there are a few threads on this site. The biggest issue is getting to the hard drive. Here is a whole site which is dedicated to TiVo hacking: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/ You can find most of what you want there.

[tgc225]

That particular forum doesn't allow talk of extracting video, but I found another one that does. Overall, it seems very challenging to get everything to work, sadly

[tgc225]

I have one more question...

Is there any website that has comparison screens with different capture methods? Like satellite/digital cable/analog cable/antenna using various capture methods like set top recorder or PC card? I'm just interested in the kind of quality you can get with various methods.

[Riccardom]

You can read Doom9 guide as the one about DVB to DVD-R under TV Capture.
It is quite understandable (for my english) and you can obtain good result.
You hardly ever have to recompress the mpeg stream, it happened to me only once with an odd 528x576.
It also depends if your standalone player accepts strange resolutions.
Hope it helps

Riccardom

[tgc225]

Hey thanks, I checked that out and it seems quite a bit easier to record that way rather than hacking the Tivo box and patching it and doing all that stuff. So that would work with current satellite services (like Dish and DirecTV) and capture the MPEG2 stream without re-encoding?

What kind of computer would you need for this method to be effective? And what kind of cards would be good choices?

EDIT: I searched around the forum, and it looks like the satellite signals are encrypted and you can't capture the streams directly. Looks like there is no easy way to capture the streams at the moment

[Vanderlow]

Well I've done a little reading and I'll tell you what I know. Dish and ExpressVu (Canada) follow the DVB standard and you could tap into any non-encrypted channels they have, probably not many and lame. You can get a DVB-S card for as little as $100 (Twinhan VisionPlus 1020A or WinTV Nova-s) and use a few programs out there like MyTheatre (shareware). You could Google on trigger words: DVB, DVB-S, FTA (free to air), and HTPC. The card will get the above along with C and Ku band transmissions and there are some free to air channels you can get with these cards.

I hope they start a DVB forum.

Here's mytheatre forum:

http://mytheatre.phpbbhost.info/portal.php

[tgc225]

Thanks, I'll check that out. Too bad choices are so limited. I think a lot of people would like to be able to capture a satellite stream directly and then be able to archive it on a DVD with the exact same quality as the stream.

[tgc225]

Hm, well, Dish Network could be a viable option for me since they are combining with SBC, and that means my dad can get an employee discount.

It looks like it might be possible to see encrypted channels as well:

http://mytheatre.phpbbhost.info/viewtopic.php?t=363

Though I've had a hard time finding more info about that.

[Vanderlow]

Yes I think you can. Try this forum and look for sticky step by step.

http://www.dsscanada.ca/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=13&page=2&sort=lastpost&order=&pp=20&daysprune=-1


Also they have a DVB forum now under the name of "Digital TV", if you're going to continue along the DVB line, you might want to take it in there.

[Paul Simmel]

Short of hacking, "capture" the video via firewire directly to your pc using the Save To VCR function on your Tivo unit. The quality will blow you away.