Professional actor wants to edit own demo reel - need help with capturing!

[N.V.]

I'm an actor and have always had my demo reels assembled by professional firms in Los Angeles. For my next update, however, I would like to try editing the reel myself rather than paying someone else to do it. I'm confident about my editing skills (I routinely edit footage I've shot), but I'd love to get some help with regard to capturing source material.

I'm appearing in an upcoming episode of a FOX TV series and would like to capture that footage. There are plenty of services that will record an "air check" for actors and send them a digital file for a fee. But again, I'd like to do it myself, with the highest possible quality. I'm just not sure of the best way to accomplish it.

In case it's useful information, TV comes into the house via Comcast/Xfinity cable to a Motorola cable card which is inserted into a TIVO Premiere XL. And of course I have broadband internet, also through Comcast/Xfinity. Computers are all Window 10. I edit video with Adobe Premiere.

The program airs on the FOX prime time schedule and episodes are also available for streaming on the FOX website. It's also available through Amazon Video.

I'd be very grateful for any advice on the best way to capture the program/clip for eventual editing.

[KarMa]

With cable and satellite tv, most of the time all the channels are encrypted and require capture equipment to either capture the HD analog component signal or capture the raw HDMI signal. Both methods require re-encoding which will lose quality, unless captured losslessly (massive files) via HDMI I believe. Maybe you can post what kind of decoder box Comcast provided you.

Best option might be to capture the TV show over the air (antenna) with a capture card. Just need to live in or close to a city with a FOX affiliate. Without knowing what kind of encoding/bitrate Comcast uses, and what bitrate your local affiliate uses, I have no way of knowing what might be the best source. Over the air TV is usually of better quality than bandwidth restricted satellite tv, but cable/fiber companies usually have more bandwidth to work with.

[N.V.]

Hi KarMa, thanks for your reply. My decoder box is not actually a box, but a Motorola "M-Card" multi-stream cable card, which is inserted into a TIVO Premiere XL.

Obviously, I can record the program on the TIVO, but I'm guessing there would be a significant quality loss if I were to attempt transferring that file to a computer and putting it into an editable state. If that's not correct, perhaps that's a good option?

As for capturing the over-the-air broadcast signal, that sounds like a good option. We have a strong FOX signal here. I just figured there might be some sort of direct digital solution that would produce better quality. Is there a particular brand/type of capture card you'd recommend?