What Capture Card Will Record From My Digital Cable Signal?

[Vince4587]

I can't believe I cannot get a clear answer on this, so I was hoping an expert in this forum would take pity and help. I have a digital cable box from Cablevision here in NY and I just bought a new PC with a ATI AIW 9800. I thought it would be able to record from TV right into my PC. I have come to find out that it DOES NOT record from digital cable, only regular cable. I need to find an inexpensive PCI card or converter device that will allow me to do this since I spent a fortune on the AIW. Please help. Thanks.

Joseph

[peregrin]

that doesn't make sense i have digital cable here in Ontaro Canada , and i have AIW 7500 and have no problem recording. Does your cable box convert from digital to analog to go to your TV , if so you probably have some setting set incorrectly.

[Nelson37]

Run the S-video from the Cable box the the ATI. Works for me.

On many systems, all stations below 100 are non-digital, which work with Coax input on my ATI, though with lesser quality. As I recall, I could tune in a few digital channels over 100 but none of the premium channels over 120 or so. Quality was better through S-video, whether from passing through the cable box, different connector, or bypassing the ATI tuner, I don't know.

[FOO]

Your capture card will record VIDEO from anything that has VIDEO
out. Your Digital Cable Tuner/converter has VIDEO out to the TV.

And no, you may not be able to use the TUNER in the card. You can't
use the TUNER in your TV either.

The main inconvenience there is that you can't setup scheduled captures
on any channel you want, as with Regular Cable into the TUNER.

You also can't have 10 different TVs on 10 different channels with
Digital Cable either.

[Vince4587]

Thanks everyone. After a huge amount of tinkering, I got it to work. However, I could only watch and record. One of the main reasons I got the card was to schedule recordings. Is there a product out there that will allow me to schedule recordings on my PC instead of buying a TIVO-like device? Thanks.

[overloaded_ide]

Glad you got it working.

As for scheduling recordings though. NO.

Beleave that's not got anything to do with your PC at all. You only get one channel from your cable box at a time, so that is what would have to be set, nothing after it will work.

If you have channel 3 playing for instance, then all you have is channel 3!
Technically the other 100 or so channels do not exist downstream. You have to change to the other channels with your cable box when you want to watch a different one. Then only that channel exists. I am reffering to downstream like to the VCR or TV or PC when I say only one channel exists. You have them all to choose from on the upstream (cable side) of your box.

I think you have a similar problem with Satilite dishes also, only one channel at a time exists to the VCR/TV/PC unless you have a second head for a second tv.

As far as I know the only thing you can do is set the cable box to automatically play the channels at certain times if that is posible with your box. Can you schedual the cable box to automatically play your shows?
If so,
Then just set the shedualed capture with the ATI card to turn on and off when you want to record like that. You can't change channels with it, but you can still turn it on and off to record what ever channel you cable box is playing.

I don't have Cable myself, but that's the conclusion I have come to after seeing people that have it.


Basically just think of the ATI card as a VCR, if you can't schedual the VCR to automatically record various channels directly then you can't do it with the ATI either. But if you can, then you can with the ATI also. And it works that way for all devices on the TV side of a cable box.

[gmatov]

Vince,

There is a question of semantics, here. Was it your intent to capture the digital channels, unattended, or other channels?

I have a cable box, also, but have split the input before the box, one wire to the computer, the other to the box. I can watch all the channels on the TV, but only the non-digital on the PC, and capture the non-digitals.

The signal is normal, picture also. The box is only required for the digital channels. The tuner on my cap card also works. And, if I did not have the box, the tuner on my TV would work, well, since it goes through the VCR, the tuner in the VCR would do the channel changing.

Should I wish to cap a digital channel, it is a simple matter of changing the input to the box to direct, non-split, and the output, split, to both TV and cap card.

Then, I would only be able to watch and cap the same program..

I am with Comcast, but do not think yours is different. I don't think they even give you a box with Basic Cable. I could do with one fewer remotes.

Cheers,

George

[gmatov]

Overload,

Cable is different from satellite. Dish, and Direct TV require a descrambler for all ( I'm pretty sure ) channels. They are not TV frequencies.

I say I'm pretty sure, because mine has been shut off once or twice, and still could get some programs at maybe Channel 9745 and the like. BTW,some good stuff up there. A computer programming class, stuff like that, from a California college. Never mind.

The thing is, regular, non-digital cable is not scrambled. It WILL come through to your TV, and, by extension, to your cap card. The freqs are TV spec, and a TV, a VCR, a Cap Card, will accept them. And change those channels for you, if your card/program will let you.

By the same token, if I had 10 TVs in my house, and was satisfied with the non-digital channels in the BR, and other rooms, I could watch them, but, again, not the digital ones, which DO require the filtering effect of the box.

BTW, I say filtering, rather than descrambling, because an old friend of mine was playing with filters to get all the Pay TV channels years ago. He didn't give a damn about " theft of service ", it was just a challenge to him.
About 65 at the time, he was happy that he could figure it out and wind the coils to do it.

And, I still don't think they're scrambled, as, if I go to a digitalm channel with the cap card, I get a lot of " horizontal hold " type distortion.

I don't know how old you are, but when I was a youngster, Horizontal, and Vertical, Hold were prominent controls on TVs. Even little kids learned how to use them. Today's TVs don't have them, nor need them.

Gonna have to get the old timer out of the basement, connect it up, and, if it works at all, see if HH and VH will get the signal properly. Might see a big market in old, tube type TVs.

Cheers,

George

[overloaded_ide]

Ok.
I didn't know that digital cable was both types. Yea I think you pretty much need to have the box for a Satilite to get anything, I thought you did with the digital cable too.

I'll remember that too, since if I ever got cable I would want more than one TV/PC/VCR conneted to it
Are the lower 100 non-digital channels good ones, regular cable ones then? The old stuff is all I mostly even care about watching or recording.

[gmatov]

Overload,

Yeah, I'm watching, I think 129, box, and tthe cap card is on 36.

Now, the cap card will only go to 69, and 3 of those have no signal. They're out of it..

On satellite, if I recall, I had about the full 181 channels that the card was capable of tuning in, after the box, and, I'd assume, if I fed the box to this card, I would have the channels available on the TV also.

I don't choose to do so, at this time, as there is really not that much that is recordable, ie, really, really good, to waste the time to capture..

TV really does suck, doesn't it

Cheers,

George

[lordsmurf]

Setup ATI MMC's timer.
Then go setup the digital receiver's timer.

[Nisse Hult]

As stated preveously, If you want to schedule a capture, you also need to be able to make the cable/sat box change to the right channel.

The scheduling bit on the computer is pretty easy to acheve, lots of programs have this built in and others can be told to start capturing by using a launcher app.

The tricky part is to get the cable/sat box to change channel when you want it to...
I have tried 2 ways of acheaving this - both work...

1. If your box have a serial interface (my nokia 9802s sat box has one) the chances are that you can control it from your computer by connecting a null modem cable to it.
2. Or you can get a IR transmitter/reciever to change the channels. Its probably the easyest way since its simpler and is also supported by capturing applications.

To schedule and capture i suggest you use ShowShifter ( because i know it works with both setups).
ShowShifter can interface with IR transmitters and can be setup, together with Girder, to work with com ports, so when the capture starts - the right chanel is always on.
Look at the extras section at www.showshifter.com to see what ir devices they support.