How to capture video from satellite receiver's DVR two shows at a time?

[theinv]

hi everyone,

I have done a lot of readings on this forum but I still couldn't find a perfect solution to the question that I have in mind.

I have a dual tuner dishnetwork DVR that can record two shows at the same time. Now, I want to record the shows from the DVR to my PC, also two shows at the same time.

The dish DVR receiver has the following outputs:

TV1-OUT: HDMI, S-VIDEO, compopnent video, and 1 RCA-type audio/video out
TV2-OUT: coax out, and 1 RCA-type audio/video out

It is very obvious to me that for I can only connect to TV1 using S-VIDEO, and connect to TV2 using Coax cable since most capture cards don't have HDMI and component in.

Here are my questions:

1) Are there any cards that can record two shows at the same time? Remember that I am talking about different inputs, one S-VIDEO and one coax in.


2) Let's say I decided to get two cards, do I have to get cards of different brands so they don't use the same recording software? For example, one ATI and one Hauppauge. The reason I am asking this is because I don't think I can run two instances of WinTV 2000 software to record two shows (assume that I bought Hauppauge cards) from two different inputs at the same time.


3) Is it possible to connect a capture card, like the Hauppauge PVR-500-MCE, directly to the cables coming from the satellite dish, bypassing the satellite receiver box?



Thanks!
Any help will be appreciated!

[suppafreak]

I am assuming that you have ViP622. Using that receiver you can record two shows at a time while watching the show that has been already recorded. Or if connect the over the air antenna, you can record two shows and watch the over the air signal (connecting the OTA makes the receiver a 3 tuner receiver). The recording to the two different tuners is done within a receiver. Even if you connect the receiver to two different capture cards, the scheduled recording will be done internally on the DVR. The only way you can capture on the PC is to start playing the recorded show on the DVR and capturing it while the show is playing.

There are many capture cards that have S-VIDEO or RCA type inputs, so finding the card will not be an issue.

Not sure about 1 and 2, but 3 definitely will not work, unless that card decodes the satellite signal, which would be kind of illegal.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to get the shows from the DVR to PC.

[theinv]

The only way you can capture on the PC is to start playing the recorded show on the DVR and capturing it while the show is playing.

Yes, that's what I have been doing.

Currently, I playback the video on DVR, and use the ATI AIW 9600 card to capture it to my PC. The problem is I can only capture 1 show at a time. Now, I want to speed up the capturing process so I can free up the hard disk spaces in the DVR faster.

I am thinking of getting two cards to do the capturing but I am not sure whether it is possible. So anyone who has experiences please answer my question #1 and #2 above.

Thanks!

[TBoneit]

You need two capture cards or a dual capture card, Nvidia has one for example.

Assuming VIP622 set it to dual mode, not single mode. so that it feeds two different TV sets through the coax and HDMI/Component/S-Video/Composite. The S-video is only for TV1. a Composite and a coax out are available for TV2. Actually both TV1 and TV2 are available via the coax output so you could split it to two tuners with a splitter. There are also starting to appear DVD recorders that accept component in so you could feed the component in to the recorder, HDMI to the TV and the coax to the computer. Note: All the TV1 outputs are active at the same time.

Remember you need to be in dual mode not single mode.

[theinv]

You need two capture cards or a dual capture card, Nvidia has one for example.

Yes, VIP622 is the DVR that I have.

I checked out the Nvidia Dual TV card. The card seems great. This is the first time I seen a capture card with two S-VIDEO inputs.

Can it use two different type of inputs at the same time (i.e. one CATV and one S-VIDEO)? I think this is what I will be doing because the VIP622 has S-VIDEO for TV1 and only Coax for TV2. I understand that it is possible to use Coax for TV1, but the quality will be lower than S-VIDEO.

[TBoneit]

I never tried it with two different types of imput. You'd have to ask Nvidia. We don't have it here anymore as we installed it in the Vista Ultimate computer we were building. I tested it, and delivered it.

The big problem with all the tuner cards is when we go digital they'll be useless for OTA.

[theinv]

There are also starting to appear DVD recorders that accept component in so you could feed the component in to the recorder, HDMI to the TV and the coax to the computer.

Good to hear that there are DVD recorders that can accept component input. Do you know any such models exists as of today?

It would be nice if the DVD recorder also has a HDD, so we can record it to HDD via component, then simply copy the files from HDD to computer.

[TBoneit]

http://www.avsforum.com had a list i9n their DVD recorders section as I remember it, But I reformatted and lost the link.

Try a google search. BTW most if not all HDD equipped recorders use a funny format on the drive and it isn't that easy to copy off of the drive.

Good Luck.