Cablecard capture basics - physical setup and software questions

[texas1]

please advise how to capture with a cablecard setup as I'm a novice on the topic.

A cablecard is provided for a nominal monthly fee by the cable company. This card is about the same size as a credit card but twice the thickness. The card will fit into a PCI Express card which I presume is quite expensive, true? What brands are best for capturing?

Now how does the output work to the HDTV and how is the video captured on the PC itself? I'm presuming an HDMI out video card but what brand is best?
If there is no HDTV, if you want to watch on the PC monitor itself, can the on-board video VGA out handle it?

Windows Media Center is ideal for capturing the video, true? What sizes are produced lets say for a 60 minute capture? Can a bit rate be set, what about color/hue/contrast settings? Is the captured video fuzzy or perfectly clear as the original broadcast?

any advice is appreciated. thanks!

[usually_quiet]

First, decide whether a CableCARD tuner will be useful to you.

Are you getting the CableCARD tuner to make recordings which can be played by something other than the PC that made them and authored to Blu-Ray? You won't be able to do that if the channel has copy-once protection applied to it. Copy-once channels won't be recorded at all, unless you use Windows Media Center. ...but the recordings WMC makes from copy-once protected channels are encrypted and can't be played using any device other than the PC that made them. Make any significant hardware changes to that PC or re-install windows, and it won't play them either.

Are you going to record cable-only channels or only record local over-the-air broadcast channels which could be received using an antenna? The only channels which are not eligible for copy once protection are local over-the-air broadcast channels.

Is your cable service provider Comcast, Verizon, or somebody else? Comcast tends not to use copy once protection except on premium channels. Verizon tends not to use copy once protection except on premium channels and cable-only channels owned by Fox. Other large providers (Cox, TWC, CableVision/Optimum) tend to use copy-once protection on everything but local over-the-air broadcast channels.