Need advice with over the air hd capturing

[jerecho]

I want to get an over the air hd antenna and a way to capture it on my desktop pc so I can edit my shows to commercial free and archive them. I already have all the editing and encoding software so I just need a way to get the recordings on the pc. Can someone point me in the right direction. Thanks

[Steve(MS)]

So do you want us to assume where you are located?

[jerecho]

Sorry. Washington USA

[DarrellS]

The Haupauge tuners are pretty good. I had the HVR1800 MCE kit but I don't think they make that one anymore. I believe the the HVR2250 was it's replacement.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=...NG&PageSize=20

[usually_quiet]

I want to get an over the air hd antenna and a way to capture it on my desktop pc so I can edit my shows to commercial free and archive them. I already have all the editing and encoding software so I just need a way to get the recordings on the pc. Can someone point me in the right direction. Thanks

I have had a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 for about a year and it has been a very good tuner card. It has 2 digital tuners fed by a single coax connection, which is very convenient, although if you want to record a lot of TV shows, you may need a second TV card to provide additional tuners.

As far as PVR software, if you use Windows 7, its Media Center supports up to 4 digital tuners and is easier to set up than the freeware solutions I have tried. The main downside is the WTV container it uses, but there are ways to convert from WTV to TS for editing. The WTV container supports encryption for copy protecting programming marked "copy once", but programming from over-the-air sources are legally required to be marked "copy freely", and are not encrypted so you will be able to use them as you wish.

If you do not own VideoReDo Plus or VideoReDo TV Suite H.264 then you don't have all the software you need. These two products do a much better job with streams recorded off antenna than other editors because of their ability to handle errors in the stream. VideoReDo TV Suite H.264 will edit WTV files from Windows Media Center directly, while VideoReDo Plus requires you to convert from WTV to TS before importing files.

[jerecho]

I have windows 7 ultimate with media center and I have videoredo plus. I currently have a TiVo and I edit shows from it with videoredo and it works flawlessly. So basically I just need an HD indoor antenna and then it hooks up to the card via coax cable?

[usually_quiet]

So basically I just need an HD indoor antenna and then it hooks up to the card via coax cable?

More or less. However you will probably need a pre-amplifier and a distribution amplifier for the antenna if you have weaker signals that you want to tune and have TVs to feed in addition to the capture device. The antenna installer can help you with that.

[DarrellS]

If you are allowed to use a big outside antenna where you live, that would be better. You could mount it in your attic if you're not allowed one outside if you have room in your attic. I've tried a few home built antennas that weren't very good but were better than a $40 indoor I had. The indoor antenna worked alright when they were first starting to test digital OTA but as soon as it was released, the indoor antenna stopped working since all the stations lowered their signal. All the money that I wasted on the home built antennas, I could've bought a good outdoor antenna but I would've had to mount it in the attic because of the home owners association.

If you live real close to the TV towers then you can get away with the indoor antenna but I lived right on the edge and everything I tried to boost the signal would not work.

[olyteddy]

check over at antennaweb.org or tvfool.com to see what you need for an antenna.