Capture Help...What do I need to buy.

[thakev]

Hey everyone,

Any advice I can gat would be great!

I am getting Verizon Fios TV with HD DVR installed soon and I want to play recorded content from the DVR and capture it to my computer. This is to back up shows to DVDs. My TV is right next to my computer so I'm not terribly interested in having the guide functionality on my PC, I just want to capture what I've recorded.

As far as I can tell so far...all of the outputs on the DVR work simultaneously so what I was thinking is that I'm going to run HDMI to my TV and coax to to a tuner card and with the tuner card tuned to channel 3 I would play the DVR and capture on the PC.

Will this work?
What software should I use to capture?
What tuner card would be a good buy?

hope to hear what you come up with soon,
Kev

[jagabo]

As far as I can tell so far...all of the outputs on the DVR work simultaneously so what I was thinking is that I'm going to run HDMI to my TV and coax to to a tuner card and with the tuner card tuned to channel 3 I would play the DVR and capture on the PC.

Will this work?

Assuming the DVR outputs to HDMI and other connection at the same time, yes. But coax will be standard definition only and the lowest of the low in terms of quality. Using Composite would be better. S-video even better. Component even better (allows for high def too). Firewire would be best (if the DVR outputs to it) but can be tricky in practice.

What software should I use to capture?

Depends on what capture device you get.

[thakev]

I do believe that the DVR does output to firewire. The problem was I couldn't find any capture cards that had a firewire port. I did find a HDMI capture card that is still an option depending on the price difference with firewire. Do you have any recommendations?

[jagabo]

You will not be able to use an HDMI capture card (like the Black Magic Intensity). Everything over HDMI will be HDCP encrypted. There are no HDMI capture devices that will capture that.

Capturing via firewire doesn't require specifically a firewire video capture device, just a firewire adapter. If your computer doesn't have a firewire port you can get one for about US$10:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124032

You'll need a firewire cable too, of course.

Firewire capture is very hit-and-miss. Your DVR has to have a firewire port and it must be enabled by the cable company. Your local over-the-air channels should be output over it (other channels may be encrypted.). These are all FCC requirements but many cable companies don't supply it and have little interest in supporting it. Drivers and capture software are kludgy:

http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/

It's worth a try as this will get you the digital MPEG stream recorded by the DVR (no further A/D and D/A conversion like when capturing composite, s-video, or component video).

There are very few capture devices that will capture component video. Fewer still that will capture HD component. The Hauppauge HD PVR can capture HD component. But many (most?) cable boxes won't output HD component and HDMI at the same time. I have to disconnect the HDMI cable when I want to capture from my DVR.

http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1015617