Cable Co.'s DVR or Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350

[Quadzilla]

Hi all,
My VCR recently died and I'm looking for a new way to record cable TV shows. I'm a Cablevision subscriber with Digital IO (digital cable). What I'd really like to be able to do beside recording cable TV shows is to be able to burn them to a DVDR after recording. I know Cablevision offers a personal videorecorder but I'd still have to hook that up to my PC somehow so that I can burn to a DVDR. Can someone please tell me how I can hook up the DVR to my PC? I do have a Pinnacle Studio 9 capture card but am not sure if I can hook a DVR up to that, any thoughts? I believe Cablevision uses the Scientific Atlanta 8300 DVR.

I was looking at the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350 and it looks like I could use that without needing to use a DVR, I could just hook my existing cable box(Scientific Atlanta 8300) to the WinTV-PVR-350. Thing is, it says it's only a 125 Channel TV tuner, does that have anything to do w/the number of channels I get in my cable package? Would I still be able to record from ANY Channel if I use this card? Thanks in advance for any info!

[edDV]

Hauppauge PVR series would only get the analog (two digit) cable channels. Most cable companies are reducing analog channels to make room for HDTV so analog choice will continue to decline. Eventually, only the 12-20 locals will be available.

The cable DVR is good for short term recording all channels. Also get a standalone DVD recorder to dub the stuff you want to keep to DVDR.

Connection is S-Video and rca (red/white) audio.

You can alternatively use a PC capture card (including a Hauppauge PVR) for dubbing but that is only needed for heavy editing.

[dj4monie]

I capture directly from D*TV and have been. We have an older Tivo D* TV tuner not being used and Im still thinking about using my ATI TV Wonder 2.0 as a 2nd tuner and getting local TWC so I can use the Guide TV function like its ment to be used.

I think using the Tivo based D*TV box would simplfy things greatly. I can use the capture part of the ATI card and Studio 8 to do any editing. Say what you want, but all I really end up doing is deleting commericals from my captures and not much else. I might find it limited when creating menus and what not, but I haven't got that advanced yet.

I bought a DVD-RW drive so there's no need to buy a stand alone set-top DVD Recorder, if all you wanted to do was capture from your DVR.

Just get the DVR from the cable company and do your editing on the PC and burn when your finished...

You'll be using the S-video input and honestly with a clean signal the video isn't that bad at all.

Just don't expect anything wonderous...

[BruceSD]

Your digital cable box may offer stereo audio out via RCA jacks and composite and s-video out. You can hook that up to a Hauppauge card, use the tuner in the box to tune the channel. You could use the RF passthru, set the channel on the Hauppauge on 3 or 4 like a VCR, but the audio will be mixed and not real stereo.

If you have a DVR already from your cable company, I'd just get a set-top DVD recorder, and take the content off of the DVR that way. I have a Dish Network DVR and record to a Panasonic DVD recorder. I have done this for 2 years, for the most part been happy. If you need nice, precise edits, get a set-top with a hard drive; I pause the recording to "edit" the commericals out, and edit on a PC later if I need cleaner cuts, which works well but isn't real convienent. Be sure and get a dual-layer compatible set-top box, so you can have 4 hours of quality recording time.

You can build a DVR out of a PC, but nothing will be as easy as a DVR from the cable company. I have built a DVR/general HTPC and it was quite challenging even though I am a computer professional by trade. It ended up being very powerful and versatile, but a ton of effort and not as "polished" as any set-top box.

[Quadzilla]

Thanks All,
I bought a dual layer DVDR not too long ago so I'd rather not shell out more $ on a set top DVD recorder if I don't have to. Guess I'll get the DVR and a different TV capture card. Stereo is not very important but getting a decent picture is. Just want to confirm, I can get a TV cap card like this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1048731&CatId=1425
and hook it up to the DVR with coax to the tuner cards TV input then just capture like I do when I do VHS captures w/Studio 9.

Can anyone recommend any other models besides the Sabrent? How does the Sabrent compare to my Pinnacle Studio card? Also, I'll be using a splitter to get video from the DVR to my TV and the tuner card, that OK? Thanks?

[karelj]

I am also a Cablevision subscriber and I have the DVR connected to my Hauppauge PVR 150 via Svideo. Happy with the results.
I also have the Hi-definition package although I dont have a hi-def tv. I did this to get the best image quality available. I capture using Dscaler in AVI/Huffy codec, then I convert to Mpeg and make the DVD.

I rather have the cable dvr for recording. Computers have a nasty habit of crashing.