Computer used as a PVR?

[Morloc]

Perhaps the knowledgeable folks on this thread can answer a question I've had for a long time regarding using a PC as a PVR. I subscribe to digital cable. The coax plugs into a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000, which outputs s-video and composite video. My question is: is there a video card and software that will take the digital signal before the cable box and decode it so I get maximum quality, or is my only option to capture the analogue output of the cable box? I think I have read hundreds of posts from the dish and digital cable people, and no one ever specifies just what signal they are capturing. Or maybe it's a dumb question! I honestly dunno.
Thanks,
morloc

[mracer]

Morloc, that's not a dumb question at all. Perhaps we (myself included) sometimes don't do such a good job of explaining things or leave out vital details in our discussions.

To answer your question: You have a great idea, but unfortunately there is no video card and software that will take the digital signal before the cable box and decode it.

Perhaps someday the cable companies will allow such a device but with Hollywood controlling the entertainment world I seriously doubt it. Hollywood is in a dead serious panic over controlling everything that can be done with digital video signals. For this reason, we may well be stuck with analog capture of standard definition signals for a long, long time. There might be a slightly better chance that someday a digital cable PVR will be hacked to provide a network port and software tools will be written to extract the video digitally and transfer it across a network to a PC. Until then the only box that can do that is a series 1 DirecTivo (which is only for DirecTV satellite signals). Even that is something that I find way too difficult to implement. Series 1 stand alone Tivos can also be hacked in the same way but they are doing analog input from regular analog cable.

[gcutler]

gcutler, I'm getting ready to post a new topic in the capture forum. Would you spend a moment giving your opinion on it? If I remember right, you like AVI capture, so I'd like some input from that side of the line as well. Thanks!!

Its not that I like AVI capture, just happen to have the (Now unsupported) Dazzle which does not do encoding on the fly. Since I learned on AVIs I continued that way...Although I would probably replace the Dazzle with a Canopus ADVC-100 so nothing would change in the long term, so I guess I would fall in the Pro-AVI Capture camp...

[Morloc]

@ mracer
Thank you for the detailed reply. I guess that's why no one talks about recording the digital signal - it can't be done. Scientific Atlanta does have several flavors of decoders - some with DVR capabilities and built-in hard drives. They have LAN ports built in but not yet implemented. So at some point in the future I may be able to get PVR capabilities in my set-top box as well as output from it's hard drive to my PC to burn TV to DVD, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon.
Thanks again,
Morloc

[lordsmurf]

Would you like to come to my house for a visit to see for yourself this "amazing"/"impossible"/"new fangled" technology.

Yes. What's your address?

Anyway, I still don't believe the 4-tuner thing. There are current limits on the tech. And yeah, it kinda bites.

And you've nailed something I've repeated for months: the transponders are over-stuffed, and signal quality lowers every day. I'm glad more people are catching on to that. We need to yell at Dave more.

[mracer]

Lordsmurf, Perhaps I have been a little too hard on you today. I applogize for that. My offer stands if you ever want to visit.

The 4 tuner DirecTV HD DVR will happen in 2004. I predict it will be available around May 2004 for $799. The device in question is called the HD-DVR250 DIRECTV® HD DVR. It has already won an 2004 CES Innovations Award. See the link below:
http://www.cesweb.org/attendees/awards/innovations/2004/default.asp?category=16

Picture of the HD-DVR250
http://www.cesweb.org/shared_files/innovations/innovations_2004/2787/mainphoto2787.jpg

The reason it will be able to include 2 HD DirecTV tuners and 2 "over-the-air" HD tuners is that it will be a bitstream recorder. It won't do any encoding, only playback decoding of the bitstreams it records to hard disk. This is the same way the current DirecTV PVR's work with standard DirecTV signals. The current technology was designed in 2000, so I don't think it is a stretch that it will be done in Hi-Definition in 2004.

[SHS]

Just so you all know mracer is 100% rigth HDTV or SDTV only dose bitstream recording and it dosen't do any encoding what so ever and hate break the bad news to you there be no direct VCD, SVCD, DVD, etc recording you have re-render I hope you lot time on hands.
How ever there one BIG catch you better hope that the HDTV deivce you buy don't support that new copy flag carp that starting in June or was it July in 2005 you be SOL ocen it turn on you can't do any about it so you be rigth good analog recorder.

SageTV dose it all that rigth now
Multiple Tuners on same PC up 4 Tuner
Multiple Tuners on Multiple PC as in Network Encoding there really no limit here but network bandwith can be a problem I have say up to 16 on 100MB Nic.
Music playback
DVD playback
Picture Display
Integrated Search
Intelligent Recording
Home Video, Picture and Music Server

And up coming ver 2.0 screentshot

[gcutler]

For those who wanted some detailed specs on some Multi-Tuner Satellite reciever info, here is some news from Dish...All PDFs have drawing of reciever back panels on bottom of 2nd page. Sweet...

Regular Reciever with Two tuners (two seperate TVs, no extra tuner fee)

http://www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/pdf/product_brochures/dish_322.pdf

PVR Reciever with Two Tuners (record two shows at once, output to PIP or seperate TVs, no extra tuner fee, with UHF remotes can actually be like a real PVR SERVER)

http://www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/pdf/product_brochures/dish_player-dvr_522.pdf

Two Tuner High Def PVR (but only one TV output, no extra tuner fee)

http://www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/pdf/product_brochures/dish_player-dvr_921.pdf

[SHS]

The Dish 322 dosen't support PiP

[gcutler]

The Dish 322 dosen't support PiP

Whoops! Fixed Error...

[PinkzPantha]

**I posted this seperately, but received no responses. It looks like it fits here**

I am planning on building a 2nd computer, using my old Gateway & it's leftovers (case, 200W power supply & SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum 1 sound card, will have new MB & CPU), after an untimely MB death, to be used mainly as a "Media Center" (or PVR) of sorts: light music production/editing (CD's, digital turntable with S/PDIF digital out, some Cubase or Cool Edit), MP3's, JPEG's, some DVD & video. I would also be using it quite a bit to play games on Emulators (Arcade, Consoles), and some light web surfing. 8)

What is the best PC Video Card (excellent quality & decent price) with the best picture quality (Composite or S-Video), optimized for a (Sony WEGA) 27" television?!?

Reading this thread now makes me want to build it into a homemade PVR, so I can get rid of my old VCR, since I have a rarely-used "AverMedia EZMaker USB 2.0" input device (comments? better with a TV/capture card? or better Video + Capture Card in one?), and my main computer is a good 14+ feet away from the TV, AND the long A/V cable I bought is just a hazard when stretched across the sky of the room.

Reason being is: I don't want to buy another beast-of-a-monitor, or spend the big bucks on an LCD right now. Also, my main computer is usually (90%+ of the time) ripping/encoding/decrypting DVD's & video *(DVD Shrink 3 RULES!!!), and I can't do anything else while it sits there for hours a day doing so. It would be nice to peruse DVDRHelp.com even more than I already do, while the main comp is toiling away... it just has to look good on a TV, rather than a monitor (This would include text, Windows, etc.)!!

I would say for a list of priorities:
1. PVR - prefer DVD quality, off Digital Cable
2. Emulation - mainly Arcade, some consoles (SNES)
3. MP3's, CD's, WAV files, creating & playing of each 8)
4. Internet *(only when main comp is "DVD-Shrinking" away)
5. Photo/JPEG editing *(again, only when main comp is in use)
6. Watching Video (MPEG's, AVI, etc.), have a standalone DVD player

Recommendations for a good (but not too expen$ive) MB & CPU also welcome!

thanx in advance ;p

[mracer]

PinkzPantha, There are several difficult hurdles with what you are trying to do. Good TV captures can be obtained with analog TV capture cards, but the problem will be the video output back to your TV. In my opinion, computer VGA cards do not do an acceptable job with TV output. So, even if you overcome all the other problems of using a regular PC as a Tivo/PVR like device, the output back to your TV will look like crap. Perhaps you could get acceptable quality with a scan converter, but then you have spent at least an additional $100, with which you could be well on your way to an actual PVR.

Use the PC for the things that PC's do well. The emulation, MP3's, Internet, JPEG's, DIVX, burning DVD, etc. you want to do. Since you have digital cable, rent a digital cable PVR from the cable company for the PVR job, and use your DVD player for watching movies on TV.

[SHS]

PinkzPantha I would recommend get the WinTV-PVR 250 and copy of SageTV or SnapStream Media Beyond TV 3 (Formerly know as Personal Video Station) that way you record and do other at same with out worry about frames drop and would also highly recommend get Womble Multimedia MPEG2VCR or new MPEG Video Wizard for editing the MPEG clip.
mracer is rigth you just have to deal with poor PQ with computer VGA cards unless you go with all Digital Display as in DVI
But you may want check out AVSforum at http://www.avsforum.com/ that place to go when come TV

[PinkzPantha]

PinkzPantha, There are several difficult hurdles with what you are trying to do. Good TV captures can be obtained with analog TV capture cards, but the problem will be the video output back to your TV. In my opinion, computer VGA cards do not do an acceptable job with TV output. So, even if you overcome all the other problems of using a regular PC as a Tivo/PVR like device, the output back to your TV will look like crap. Perhaps you could get acceptable quality with a scan converter, but then you have spent at least an additional $100, with which you could be well on your way to an actual PVR.

Use the PC for the things that PC's do well. The emulation, MP3's, Internet, JPEG's, DIVX, burning DVD, etc. you want to do. Since you have digital cable, rent a digital cable PVR from the cable company for the PVR job, and use your DVD player for watching movies on TV.

mracer is rigth you just have to deal with poor PQ with computer VGA cards unless you go with all Digital Display as in DVI.

Groan...
*(Thanx 4 your replies, BTW)*!!

Isn't there one video card that's "acceptable", or "half decent" for TV?!?

I already have a main computer, and will have a 2nd much more powerful one in the coming months. However, like I said, I use it quite a bit ripping with "DVDShrink 3" & burning with "Nero 6". I use "deep analysis", and that takes some time, even before I hit "Backup". I can't do much, if anything, else while this is happening. We're talking 2 to 3 hours from start to finish per DVD backup *(AMD XP 2100 + super cheap parts, 'cept for the Sony DVD Burner... but it does the job for now, until "The Beast" [800MHz FSB P4] is unleashed!!).

Speaking of which:
Does OverClocking a processor have any positive effects on video/DVD encoding/ripping/etc., or is it really only better for higher-end 3D games?

[SatStorm]

We stupid europeans use card spliters to feed up to 7 receivers at the same time from the same subscription card. No need for multituner solutions that way. A typical DVB (s/t) reciever with embedded UCAS now cost about 120 Euros.
Also we use "season" interfaces with built in loggers and a typical phonix smartmouse 6Mhz, just to feed countless recievers from the same card through networks...
Finally, many DVB PVRs receivers have SCSI, USB 2 and firewire connections, so to hook up a PC with them and you know what that means...

Oh, and this is the very first step. After you grabb the DVB transmission, only on rare cases you can use it "as is" for your DVDs. On most cases, it needs re-encoding to a valid DVD framesize. Not to mention about the quality of the transmission: Crap is the rule.