Capturing Sky Tv what cards etc do i need?

[buyshirts]

I have a Skydigi box and i want to capture programs from it and record them on my PC. Is it only possible to capture free to view programs or can i capture subscription channels (which i have a subscription for)?
Any advise will be well received.

[TurboRunner]

Ive never tried it since i dont have sky but if you have a capture card in your computer connect the sky decoder into the capture card then choose the channel on the decoder to what you want to capture and capture using the software that came with the card.

If you need help capturing there are a heap load of guides on videohelp.com to help you get started.

thanks

turborunner

[SatStorm]

You can capture all the channels the "analogue" way (capture with a analogue - in card). Prefer BT8xx based cards, because they ignore Macrovision. Of course, you gonna capture avi and encode later to mpeg 2 for DVD.

The alternative is a bit complicated: you can use a Matrix Revolution / Reborn Cam, or a Dragon Cam for your NDS card and any DVB receiver with a Common Interface.

Another - more complicated - method, is with the use of a Dreambox receiver: There are unofficially Images (Hydra) capable to program the built in Card Reader of DM 7000, 7020 & 5620 to read NDS cards and throuth the ethernet those receivers have, to feed a PC with the DVB data direct. Expensive, beta and with many practical issues, but it works!

I do a more extreme thing myself: I Card Share my legal NDS card from a Dreambox to my Nokia 9600 (DVB2000 firmware) and I grabb direct the stream! I can also do the same with a SkyStar 2 card, but that way I can watch the channels only on PC

Good luck! Those are advance, complicated and expensive stuff! The cheap alternative is the "analogue" way: Just use any bt8xxx based card and capture analogue...

[buyshirts]

Thanks for your reply is helpful. This where i show my ignorance. Is the programs i want to capture from the Sky digibox in digital format so will the easier analogue route work?

[TurboRunner]

yes it should, what connections are on the box? svideo, composite etc.. as an output. i dont have a digital box but if its got those connections you should be able to capture using an anolog capture card such as those bt8xx chipset card i have a avermedia ezcapture 98 card that has a bt878 chipset and works reasonably well.
or i think you can use the connection that connects to your tv with the big round coax plug with a tvtuner card which should be able to tune into the channels like your tv can.

but if you have an svideo output that is the best connection to use if you dont have a firewire port for the digital transfer.