Noob Question: TV tuner that can record OTA HD streams?

[peggypwr1]

Hello many tv tuner cards allow you to watch OTA HD on your computer, but when you record them, it encodes it in mpeg 2 standard def. Is there a tv tuner card that can record HD?

[Soopafresh]

MyHD

http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/mdp130.asp

[edDV]

Hello many tv tuner cards allow you to watch OTA HD on your computer, but when you record them, it encodes it in mpeg 2 standard def. Is there a tv tuner card that can record HD?

Most if not all don't encode. They simply tune the ATSC stream and extract the subchannel stream you have tuned and stream that to a file. The resulting MPeg2 file will be HD and audio will be AC3 if that's how it was broadcast.

Do you have more specific examples?

BTW: A killer product would be one that did convert an HD stream to wide DVD aspect all in hardware. People spend hours trying to do that in software. If you know of a tuner that will make the conversion in hardware I am all ears.

[netmask56]

Certainly available in PAL land. The Dvico cards produce a MPEG TS file containing audio video and subtitles and the aspect ratio is always 16:9. These streams can be demuxed with ProjectX. Dvico does make an US model

2.35:1 is letterboxed within the 16:9 frame and 4:3 material is pillaboxed. Same for the Beyonwiz and Topfield PVR's in fact all tuners available in Australia. I think it all depends on the local transmission standards

[peggypwr1]

So any tuner with record the HD stream? I'm looking at the Happaguage dual tuner cards, will they record the HDTV signal as is?

[festmaster]

[quote=edDV][quote="peggypwr1"
Most if not all don't encode. [/quote]

Yes and no. I don't know of any cards that perform hardware encoding, but two tuners I have, a Pinnacle USB and Dvico PCI card both came with trialware that performed on-the-fly software encoding to SD MPEG2, Divx and some other codecs. I don't think the average user with a dual core processor would notice the difference between hardware encoding and on-the-fly software encoding.

[peggypwr1]

But, thay both record the HDTV stream on your HDD? THis is what I am looking for. I just want the HDTV 1080i ppicture on my HDD, then I can convert it later.

[festmaster]

Every OTA tuner card on the market today will record HD on your hard drive.

[netmask56]

Have a look at this.

ATSC HDTV card

http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/products/HDTV7DualExpress.aspx

[edDV]

[quote=festmaster][quote=edDV]

Yes and no. I don't know of any cards that perform hardware encoding, but two tuners I have, a Pinnacle USB and Dvico PCI card both came with trialware that performed on-the-fly software encoding to SD MPEG2, Divx and some other codecs. I don't think the average user with a dual core processor would notice the difference between hardware encoding and on-the-fly software encoding.

On-the fly or real time software decode/resize/encode will take many shortcuts to keep up. In other words a much lower quality result than doing it with the normal non-realtime methods.

They probably start with the poor man's deinterlace by tossing a field resulting in half the motion increments or jumbled telecine.

[edDV]

But, thay both record the HDTV stream on your HDD? THis is what I am looking for. I just want the HDTV 1080i ppicture on my HDD, then I can convert it later.

That is what you should be getting. Since no processing is going on, CPU load is near zero if you don't monitor the capture. Monitoring an HD stream will take a heavy hit on CPU and/or GPU resources.

[edDV]

Certainly available in PAL land. The Dvico cards produce a MPEG TS file containing audio video and subtitles and the aspect ratio is always 16:9. These streams can be demuxed with ProjectX. Dvico does make an US model

2.35:1 is letterboxed within the 16:9 frame and 4:3 material is pillaboxed. Same for the Beyonwiz and Topfield PVR's in fact all tuners available in Australia. I think it all depends on the local transmission standards

That is exactly the way it was broadcast. The tuner card is just passing the stream to a file.

[Soopafresh]

Have a look at this.

ATSC HDTV card

http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/products/HDTV7DualExpress.aspx

That's a good card as well. Both the Fusion and the MyHD cards are the most popular HDTV tuner cards out there. Avoid ATI. Good company, bad HD tuners.

[Reelman472]

peggypwr1,

I think your computer is a little anemic for HD capture of anything. Unless of course your computer details are wrong. Please check the software and hardware requirements before you invest $200.00 in a hdtv card.

Reelman472

[joecass]

Have a look at this.

ATSC HDTV card

http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/products/HDTV7DualExpress.aspx

That's a good card as well. Both the Fusion and the MyHD cards are the most popular HDTV tuner cards out there. Avoid ATI. Good company, bad HD tuners.

Why are ATI HD tuners bad ? Uh-oh, I just bought an ATI 650 external USB tuner and installed it on my pretty
old computer..... seems to work fairly well with OTA ATSC signals..... the software sucks though, uninstallling the
Catalyst Media Center is very difficult, as is the ATI drivers..... I'd like to try Beyond TV, but installation crashed
the computer. The ATI tuner card and software is from 2007