Recording series off sattalite tv with perfect quality DVD

[WildCatRaze]

Hello
I have a Panasonic DMR - ES46V dvd recorder. I am trying to record a series off the TV in the best possible quality. The dvd recorder can record about 1 hour in XP quality.
I have been recording in XP on a dvd ram to edit out the commercials.
Is there any better way to do this? The recorder DOES had a firewire output or input.
and it does tape if that's better quality or not..

But my main concern is also want to archive them to my computer without losing any quality. I would preferably like to split them into 1 file per episode an preferably a watchable format on my computer instead of ISO,,

any tips?

[guns1inger]

First, tape is not going to be better than recording to DVD unless you are trying to put 4 hours or more to a disk. Then you will be down to VCD quality, and VHS will be able to give it run for it's money.

Personally, I use DVD RWs, transfer this to the PC, and edit out the commercials with VideoRedo. This gives me far greater control than the recorder and is far quicker to edit.

I then either use AutoGK to create a Divx encoded AVI, or Xvid4PSP to create a high quality H264 encoded MP4 file.

[AngusMacGyver]

Hello
I have a Panasonic DMR - ES46V dvd recorder. I am trying to record a series off the TV in the best possible quality. The dvd recorder can record about 1 hour in XP quality.
I have been recording in XP on a dvd ram to edit out the commercials.
Is there any better way to do this? The recorder DOES had a firewire output or input.
and it does tape if that's better quality or not..

But my main concern is also want to archive them to my computer without losing any quality. I would preferably like to split them into 1 file per episode an preferably a watchable format on my computer instead of ISO,,

any tips?

What kind of tv tuner do you have?
Maybe you can buy a PCI tuner and record the bitstream to the HDD of PC.
As you live in the USA, I think you can buy a PCI ATSC tuner card. After the show is captured, you could edit/convert it.

That's what I'd do to get the max quality.

[jagabo]

I believe the firewire port on the ES46V is input only. It won't do you any good. You won't find anything that can capture the MPEG video stream directly from satellite in the USA. Recording onto DVD is probably your best bet.

[Nelson37]

You haven't mentioned the source broadcast type or the connection type.

Record thru S-Video from an HD channel, if available. Significant, even dramatic, improvement in quality available from the HD broadcast. The recording will be SD, but much better than standard source.

The best connection type may vary with particular hardware, but S-Video is usually best. I have not investigated HD down-sampling thru other connection types.

IVTC for 24fps is possible. Anamorphic widescreen is possible. 5.1 surround sound is possible. Subtitling is possible.

You could also go with an HD capture card, but the filesizes start getting ridiculous and require lengthy re-encodes to shrink, negating some of the quality and increasing the PITA factor.

[AngusMacGyver]

You could also go with an HD capture card, but the filesizes start getting ridiculous and require lengthy re-encodes to shrink, negating some of the quality and increasing the PITA factor.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't possible to record the compressed stream?
If it's not, my suggestion becomes useless, because file sizes will be enormous like you told.

[jagabo]

ATSC and QAM tuner cards record the MPEG stream that's broadcast. In the USA ATSC cards only capture over-the-air broadcasts -- the local TV channels you can get with an antenna. QAM tuners capture from cable providers but only capture unencrypted QAM. Unecrypted QAM is usually limited to the same channels you can get over-the-air with an ATSC tuner plus a very few others (like local access channels). I'm not aware of any capture cards that can directly capture satellite broadcasts (Dish, DirecTV) in the USA -- it's all encrypted. The HD broadcasts usually run in the 3 to 8 GB/hr range.

I don't know if the situation is different in Brazil.

Cards that include ATSC and QAM tuners include the Hauppauge HVR series, the Pinnacle PCTV HD series, and many others.

The BlackMagic Intensity Pro can capture HD component video or unencrypted HDMI (no HDCP). Pretty much everything except HD camcorders encrypt the HDMI output. If your source has HD component outputs you can use this card but it requires a powerful CPU because it uses software compression (usually MJPEG). I believe you can also capture uncompressed but you will need a RAID array to do so.

The Hauppauge HD PVR can capture HD component video. It has on onboard h.264/AAC/AC3 encoders and transfers the compressed video to the computer via USB 2.0. The software provided by Hauppauge displays the video as it's being captured. This requires that you have either a dual core CPU or a graphics card with hardware h.264 decoding. With third party software it's also possible to capture without displaying the video. Any computer with a USB 2.0 port can do this since all it's doing is capturing a few megabytes per second of data from the USB port and putting it in a file. Of course, you'll still need a sufficiently powerful computer to view the video after capturing it. I know of people using an old P3 computer to capture and store the video on a network share where it can be accessed by other computers.

[AngusMacGyver]

Hi, jagabo.
Thanks for posting a clarifying text.
Here, in Brazil, HDTV is a dream for few people. New standards, broadcast companies are putting very little HD footage on the air...

All I've done was figure out alternatives for him. I know there are hard cam drives to read a access card and give access to scrambled channels. It's funny that WildCatRaze didn't clarify what kind of TV he mentioned in his post.

Thanks again.

[WildCatRaze]

sorry I forgot to add that. Im recoding off of NTSC tv in the usa.

I am sorry I just didn't think it had anything to do with it..

[AngusMacGyver]

NTSC (analogic) or ATSC (digital)? Free TV (antenna) or cable?

[jagabo]

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1950.html
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1800.html

[WildCatRaze]

NTSC (analogic) or ATSC (digital)? Free TV (antenna) or cable?

I think NTSC analogue? from a satellite through cable

[jagabo]

As noted earlier, about the only options for recording analog output from a satellite box in the USA are the BlackMagic Intensity Pro and the Hauppauge HD PVR.

And keep in mind that the satellite and cable broadcasters have the ability shut off the analog outputs whenever they want. So what works today may not work tomorrow.

[WildCatRaze]

thank you for the reply. I have been looking into the Intensity pro does it have REALLY good quality results? I bought a pinnacle movie board and I was a little disappointed with the result. some told me the pinnacle inst actually capturing video but pictures or something.

[jagabo]

From what I've seen the Intensity Pro does a good job of capturing HD component video. But it requires a powerful computer to capture with. And you'll have to spend time reencoding later to a more storage/playback friendly codec/container.