Capturing/Recording from a digital source

[diggity]

Hi. I am a new poster, but I've seen the help that has been offered here which is wonderful, and I thought I'd find out if I could receive similar responses.

What I am looking to find is any hardware that would allow me to capture/record shows to my PC, from what I've recorded and saved to on a hard drive on my PVR.

Would I need a TV Tuner? TV Tuner and Capture Card? Capture Card? or TV Tuner/Capture Card combo? Any help would be greatly appreciated because I'm trying to free my PVR from a bunch of saved programs, and creating more room to record new ones.

[redwudz]

PVR is a pretty loose term. PVR can be anything from a computer with a video card to a standalone TIVO unit. What device are you using for a PVR?

That might give use enough info to make a informed suggestion.

[diggity]

Yeah I'm sorry. I should have clarified. It's a PVR from my cable provider that is used for my TV. In the back of the unit t has DVI input, S-Video, two firewire ports, and there is a USB port in the front.

Hope this helps. Thanks for the response.

[diggity]

Still looking for an idea of what I would need to capture digital video from my TV PVR hard drive. Thanks.

[guns1inger]

Have you

a) looked in the manual to find out what those ports are capable of ?

b) if you didn't get a manual, have you gone to the manufacturers website to see what information might be there ?

So far you haven't given us enough information to be able to offer any real help. What brand/manufacturer is the box ? What capabilities does it have, according to the manual ? Help us help you, or don't be surprised if the answers aren't forthcoming.

[diggity]

Okay the box is called Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000HD, and was bought from my cable provider at Charter. I guess the only way to put recorded programs on my PC is to transfer them to VCR, and from VCR to my computer.

Then my next question would be what is the best video/capture card combo fthat is currently available right now? Also would I be able to capture channels as provided by my cable box, or only those that the video/capture card comes with?

Thanks.

[sacajaweeda]

If you are going to capture, don't use a VCR. Capture directly from your PVR.

As for which card, that all depends on what you want and what you're willing to do. You can spend anywhere from five bucks for a used BT8xx chipset based card on eBay to upwards of several hundreds or even thousands, depending on what you're after.

[diggity]

But I just learned that I can't transfer to my PC directly from the programs saved on my PVR, and that in order to do so, they need to be put onto VHS.

What I want to do with the card is record certain programs (HD or not) into a file type that can be in a size that is in the norm, like 350-375mb. Then I want to encode them to MPEG-2 format for authoring then burning.

Should I buy a capture card and video card seperately or together as one unit? I am going to get Microsoft's Media Center Station and I think capturing TV would be good for it. What do you use to connect the capture card to the TV or PVR?

Thanks.

[guns1inger]

If you can record them to VHS, you can record them to the PC directly. Just hook the cables that would have gone to your VCR to the PC card directly. If you have firewire and a DV camera you could go through this instead of buying a new card.