why capturing DirectTV or cable to DVD ?

[ktnwin]

Maybe I am ignorant, but why there are some who try to figure out how to capture DirectTV or cableTV and burn to DVD.

Here are my reasons for not to:
1) DirectTV and cable already broadcast in some form of MPEG-2, not always DVD compatible without re-encoding (due to frame size for example)
2) DirectTV and cable do not always broadcast with the quality that I expect from digital format (at least equal to DVD)
3) re-encoding from a digital source (with just OK quality) won't yield a very good DVD

Here is what I would do: just record directly from the antenna to a stand alone recorder would give a better result. Don't you think so ?
In my case, the HDTV tuner S-video output can be routed to a standalone DVD recorder to do a superb job.
If I want editing some of the capture video, then I would capture them to my PC in AVI format, then edit/convert/author DVD as usual.

If I miss something, pls educate me.

[louthewiz]

I have my dish network reciever hooked up to my DMR-E80H and I record directly to the hdd or to a dvd-ram via s-video and I edit or cut and join the movie or program and take it to my computer make a custom menu and burn to a dvd and I can surely tell you the burnt dvds look great.And I have always been happy with the outcome of all my captures.

[lordsmurf]

Maybe I am ignorant, but why there are some who try to figure out how to capture DirectTV or cableTV and burn to DVD.

Here are my reasons for not to:
1) DirectTV and cable already broadcast in some form of MPEG-2, not always DVD compatible without re-encoding (due to frame size for example)
2) DirectTV and cable do not always broadcast with the quality that I expect from digital format (at least equal to DVD)
3) re-encoding from a digital source (with just OK quality) won't yield a very good DVD

Here is what I would do: just record directly from the antenna to a stand alone recorder would give a better result. Don't you think so ?
In my case, the HDTV tuner S-video output can be routed to a standalone DVD recorder to do a superb job.
If I want editing some of the capture video, then I would capture them to my PC in AVI format, then edit/convert/author DVD as usual.

If I miss something, pls educate me.

#1
The signal is encrypted. The only way to grab the raw signal is to have an illegal PCI setup with a softcam, or to hack apart certain Tivo units. Neither are cheap, both take a lot of time. One is illegal, one is just hard. Some of the Tivo/DVR units do .. something ... to the streams too.

#2
The signal is not DVD spec MPEG2. It comes as a TS (transport stream) and in DVB or DVBII or DSS format. You cannot author this to a true DVD. It must be re-encoded anyway.

#3
Capturing a digital stream still beats the quality of any of traditionals format, be it VHS, cable, or antenna. The best quality is satellite. No distortions. Digital cable is often just digitally-compressed analog, and still has flaws.

#4
Not everybody has a cheap capture card. The only chipset that can give my ATI cards competitions is the LSI encoder chipset. I've run extensive tests. I do use the recorder for live broadcast because it is easier, but I'll still use the ATI when needed. Normally save ATI for harder restoration work.

#5
You method is the same as what you said not to do?! Re-encode the signal with another device. Capture card or recorder, same issue.

[Supreme2k]

Dish Network is shit. Just slightly better than SVCD. I'm switching to "the next big thing" ASAP.

[ktnwin]

lordmurf,
I agree with most what you said (1 to 4) and that's my points. For item #5, the difference is:
one is free (using antenna, over the air HDTV), the other one cost you the monthly subscription. I would not want to pay for something that will not yield much better result (DVD quality I meant).

[lordsmurf]

Well, remember that DISH/DSS is not going to have analog noise. That's the big reason to buy it.

[Cyrax9]

LS --

Are you using DISH or DirecTV fior your DSS System?

The reason I ask is because I have sh*t-quality Digital Cable (I've seen Antenna's with better picture quality that are oh.. FREE! They carry less channels but we're basically talking ABC and UPN here, the real channels higher up I want are ABC FAM TOON DIS and G4-TECH TV, my father wants YES! Network and this poses a problem.) and am about to snap.

Di$ney (or rather their mindless BVS Branch) has decided NOT to do box DVD (or even FULL SEASON VOLUME) Sets of one of my favorite TV Series! (I swear, just give me the footage and a roof, I'll do the Disc's myself! Thisis a combonation of stupidity and laziness, that's why I'm recording copies for myself and to think this show has been on for OVER 11 years now and passed 500 EPisodes early this season!)

So I do what evrybody in this forum would do, I sue my Panny DMR-HS2 (Or set tioop of your choice) to record it, and then clean it up on my PC. What happens? The singal comes in like it was garble in the transmission and I wind up paying approx. $80 a month for three DIgital Cable Boxes (NOT HD just Digital) and $0.50 frickin' cents for a remote! (I swear they nickel adn dime me to death!)

Unfortunately, there's a reason why I can't upgrade to a Dish. I have CABLE INTERNET ACCESS! Ok, I know what your'e about to say..l "Get DSL!" Well unfortunately, the bonehead township I live in doesn't OFFER DSL in my area! I hate to sound smug here, but everytime I explai this NOBODY belvies me! Yeah I know DSL Sucks compared to cable in most cases anyway, but I pay ANOTHER $80 for Two Cable MOdems to keep a decent speed and to not be networked to certain family members who require more maintenance than a Ferrari when it comes to PC's!

This presents a problem, I get a FAT DISCOUNT for having those boxes for TV on my Cable Bill, meaing I can AFFORD the extra Modem and all, sadly, I also LOOSE the ability to afford a DSS SYtem because of this.

I NEED something faster than Dial-UP for net access (C'mon A/V Geek AND Comp Geek -- you do the math!) and BPL isn't availanble widely yet. (I seriously want this... if only to spite Cablevision.)

This leaves me witrh a Lose/lose Catch-22. If I get a Dish, I loose my High Speed Internet Access, this is BAD when computers are networked. (I know someone who was tenacious enough to network a 56k connection it's surprisingly stable but slower than a retarded turtle!) IF I keep Cable, I loose the ability to see my favorite TV Shows! I don't fel like dealing with the "Rebbot the box wait on hold for life." people who the cable company calls Tech Support, so I'm trying to figure out how to make a Dish affordable and which brand to use.

I'm also interested in possibly picking up Wildfeeds that are NOT encrypted and are thus, unbugged -- remember Disney is showing me no mercy with this show. I know one person who gets the show via Wildfeed through his DSS System, but I don't know how he does it. I'm going to clean the episodes up on the PC Anyway, I just want a better system, so my question is:

Do I go with DISH Network since I've heard tweo people prauise it (if not more) and only one bash it, or do I go with DirecTV which Ihear is infamous for "holes" in the video (Read: LARGE Drops) or, do I keep my disasterous Cable Set-up and hope the FCC Mandates better broadcasting standards? (Yeah Right.)

I'd like to have a DSS Set-up by February, when the next Season/Series premires, because most of my recordings form this season are a waste of DVD-R's and could have been done on VHS, the quality drop is that bad.

Not to mention I've lost good airings of UPN's ST: Enterprise from this mess of a system and I'm trying to figure out if my TV is HD or not.

The Cable COmpany makes it sound simple, if you have progressive Scan Inputs, you have HDTV. I think there's more toit than that, ro am I wrong?

I have a pR/pB/Y Component Video Input (VIDEO 4) on my SOny KV27FS13 TV Set, is this HD or not? Or is it HD-Ready, meaing I just need an HD Reciver or HD Digital Cable Box?

I should mention the idiots installing this nearly broke my DVD Writer when they brilliantly stuck the box on top of it nearthe chrome finish, I was OUTRAGED that I had to REDO thier work and pay for a lousy installation sicne someone here is as dumb as a post and had the Cable Guy do it, rather than let me.

So DISH or DirecTV, I've heard DTV Sucks and DISH is great but the one comment above worries me, am I walking into the mess I already have? HOw much worse DOES the signal actually get in a stomr, if any worse? I'm in a Suburban part of New Jersey and I don't want to replace a bad system with a worse one. What's sad is, my ANALOG Cable was crisper than my digital cable is!

Thanks in advance for any help -- I appreicate it. I'd like to yell at Di$ney for being stubborn about DVD's of a TV Show that's ben on since 1993, but at least they're AIRING new episodes, thus I'm going to make my complaint to Cablevision, who's signal has ruined the three shows I watch weekly -- I dont' care about bad singal while SUrfing and Stra TRek I can buy on DVD now, but as it stands this is an outrage, $80 for a disaster set-up.

I sympathize with the guy above trying to figure out how to get near-DVD Quality off of a TV, I'm going through the same issue and I'd like to save your #3 quote regarding Digital Cable LS, it just prooves what I need other members of the household to know.

[lordsmurf]

I like DirecTV more than DISH. Just experience there. There's not a huge difference in them, not really. DSS just tends to have a better signal on a few channels, but not too noticeable.

I had DSS and cable both. My Internet is a separate charge. I get free basic cable with it. The upgrade price is not more than $10 away from dish, so I had dish. Easy choice.

[SatStorm]

And just because some Europeans gonna read this, l 'll add some European PAL DVB infos, for those that search our forum and always end up to American infos.

In Europe we are using DVB transmissions. There are DVB PCI cards, that allows watching those DVB transmissions on your PC. You can watch legally all the FTA channels and with a legal subscription card and a compatible Common Access Module (CAM) the encrypted channels of the service you pay to watch. This is possible through Europe except the following services: Sky Digital (UK/Ire), Sky Italia (Italy) and YES (Israel).Those three services are using Videoguard encryption, A.K.A. NDS and there is no CAM for that encryption system. Also, the European NDS is not hacked like the American one, so the only way to bring those transmissions to your DVDs, is through the classic root (Capture, filter, encode, author, burn).

When a DVB transmission is 352 x 576, 704 x 576 and 720 x 576, it is possible to burn direct to DVDs, without any kind of encoding. Audio also is not a problem, because DVB transmissions have mp2 (mpa) audio, which happens and is an official standard of the Region 2 DVD Video specifics.

You just grabb the DVB transmission, and depending your equipment, it's gonna be a ready for burn mpeg 2 or a TS file, which in a way is like the VOBs of the DVDs. In that case, you have to extract the mpeg 2 from TS, a very easy task to do with freeware tools like pvastrumento.

Unfortunately, the majority of the DVB transmissions are not 352/704/720 x 576. Framesizes like 480 x 576, 528 x 576 and 544 x 576 (used a lot by the French providers) are very common and those you have to re-encode. IMO, better re-encode to 352 x 576 but if the source is very good, consider 704 x 576 (with lanczos resizing, anti block filtering, etc).

The benefits of this root are many: You don't capture, so you don't have colourspace loses, analogue framedrops, audio distortions (hiss noise for example...), colour sifting problems, luminance adjustments (if neccessary, vary rare for PAL users but usual for SECAM ones). There are times you don't even need to re-encode! Just grabb and author direct (TMPGenc Author except those DVB files really easy...), save time and quality. Because what you see, is what you burn!

[lordsmurf]

USA NDS is no longer hacked either, FYI. DirecTV saw to that earlier this year. Only Nagra is compromised, but not entirely, and not easily. Not legal either, none of it. If you want the streams, hack a TIVO unit (though the TIVO output and actual streams can sometimes differ, not sure why this is).

Only FTA is free in USA for DVB, and there is much less here than in Europe. If you live on the east coast, you can often get the EU DVB streams.

For some reason, not all TS needs to be extracted, can burn to 544x480 DVD in DVD LAB with patched headers just fine.

It's amazing to see the "quality" of satellite is not much better than anything home users do. But it's one generation earlier, so therefore more desireable. Just note that re-capturing a DVB signal is not all that bad.

[indolikaa]

Maybe I am ignorant, but why there are some who try to figure out how to capture DirectTV or cableTV and burn to DVD.

Here are my reasons for not to:
1) DirectTV and cable already broadcast in some form of MPEG-2, not always DVD compatible without re-encoding (due to frame size for example)
2) DirectTV and cable do not always broadcast with the quality that I expect from digital format (at least equal to DVD)
3) re-encoding from a digital source (with just OK quality) won't yield a very good DVD

Here is what I would do: just record directly from the antenna to a stand alone recorder would give a better result. Don't you think so ?
In my case, the HDTV tuner S-video output can be routed to a standalone DVD recorder to do a superb job.
If I want editing some of the capture video, then I would capture them to my PC in AVI format, then edit/convert/author DVD as usual.

If I miss something, pls educate me.

I capture from both DirecTV and Dish Network to DVD all day long, so prepare to be educated.

First off, I can't record from an antenna or cable. We don't have cable in this part of the world, and I live 150 miles from the nearest DMA. So I have to use some form of satellite to receive television.

Second, I capture from the analog outputs directly into either a DVD Recorder or a pair of ATI AIW 9000 Pros. The source material comes from either Dish Network DVRs or DirecTV TiVo units. Yes, there is a minimal amount of signal loss when capturing via the S-Video/RCA jacks, but not enough for me to notice.

Third, by bringing the signals into the ATI or the DVD-RAM Recorder, the streams are editable and authorable without re-encoding. Yes, you can edit MPEG streams to your heart's content. And the more I use DVD-RAM, the more I'm thinking of doing all satellite capturing to DVD Recorders instead of the computers themsevles.

Fourth, in the rare instances I need to edit, well, that's what MPEG Video Wizard is for. Of course, I can always capture to AVI in the first place; that's the nice thing about DVRs and PVRs.

As for toying with the DVRs/PVRs/Recievers to try and rip the streams from the hard drive. I have yet to see someone post a definitive example that proves ripping the streams is far superior to capturing them via ATI or DVD Recorder methods. Until such time as I see proof, I could honestly care less. It's not like we're dealing with Full-D1 @ 8000 VBR satellite downlinks.

Cheers!