Best way to capture from DVR?

[tonyp2]

Via coponent out from a modern DVR is something like a Conopus ADVC110 not as good as a Happauge PVR?

[xxiangg]

I paired my DVR with this to save shows to an external hard disk.

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx?submit=ChangeItem

Although my media player has an internal 1.5T hard disk. The files are encoded as MPG2.
They player is like a regular external hard disk, you can reorganized files by hook it to an
computer via USB2. This particular one has a recording feature and is most gone.

[edDV]

Via coponent out from a modern DVR is something like a Conopus ADVC110 not as good as a Happauge PVR?

The Canopus ADVC-110 has only S-Video/Composite standard def inputs. It encodes to DV format. The main advantage is fast, easy editing and DVD resolution. Some DVRs only output letterbox on S-Video. Others output anamorphic 16:9 over S-Video.

The Hauppauge HD-PVR takes component input in so can capture SD or HD 16:9 from any HD DVR. It hardware encodes to h.264 which is more difficult to edit. Conversion to DVD requires a downscale which takes a long processing time in software. Conversion to AVCHD format for Blu-Ray disc is more straight forward.

[tonyp2]

I paired my DVR with this to save shows to an external hard disk.

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx?submit=ChangeItem

Although my media player has an internal 1.5T hard disk. The files are encoded as MPG2.
They player is like a regular external hard disk, you can reorganized files by hook it to an
computer via USB2. This particular one has a recording feature and is most gone.

xxiangg, the link did not work.

The Canopus ADVC-110 has only S-Video/Composite standard def inputs. It encodes to DV format. The main advantage is fast, easy editing and DVD resolution. Some DVRs only output letterbox on S-Video. Others output anamorphic 16:9 over S-Video.

The Hauppauge HD-PVR takes component input in so can capture SD or HD 16:9 from any HD DVR. It hardware encodes to h.264 which is more difficult to edit. Conversion to DVD requires a downscale which takes a long processing time in software. Conversion to AVCHD format for Blu-Ray disc is more straight forward.

I do like the ease provided by the Canopus; what I'm not sure about is whether there's a significant difference in image and color quality. Assume for the moment the DVR output would be SD - would the DV of the Canopus be of lesser quality than the h.264 of the Happauge? I agree once you've gone beyond SD the Canopus is at a great disadvantage.

[yoda313]

@tonyp2 - for sd material there is no real advantage for the hauppauge hd pvr. I have one and it is great for capping hd analog material via component. One sizeable advantage is its ability to capture 5.1 audio via fiber optic input. Of course it can only do dolby digital 5.1 but it does it very well. So in that sense it would be ideal if you had source material that was sd but had a 5.1 track embedded in it.

If you are talking about stereo standard definition than basically any capture device would be sufficient. Though some may only do letterbox capturing while some may do 16:9 capturing. That may be a consideration for you if you want to go that route. - fyi the hauppuage hd pvr does do 16:9 capturing on hd material and I can only assume it does so on sd material - it does have composite and svideo inputs fyi.

I can't compare dv to h264 as I don't have a dv camera to compare it to. I'm sure others here on the forum can speak to that point.

[edDV]

For SD, the quality will be similar but editing will be much faster in DV format. H.264 will suffer recode loss if you edit inside a GOP or filter.

I suggest you obtain and test some HD-PVR sample files before you decide.

[xxiangg]

I'm sorry. Google "argosy 359T",
you will get it.

Btw, if you intend to do some
editting, ADVC110 is a good way
to go. I have an older ADVC100
for years. I used it whenever I
want to do some editting to the
materials.

[tonyp2]

I'm sorry. Google "argosy 359T",
you will get it.

Btw, if you intend to do some
editting, ADVC110 is a good way
to go.

Thanks. Yes, that's why I like the idea of the Canopus. But I wasn't sure if the quality would be as good as something like even a Happauge card that goes directly to MPEG-2, or the PVR.