Turning PC into a TiVO...

[soloredd]

Well, I want to setup my PC to record upcoming basketball games this season. Most of these will be on cable, so I will need to have my cable connection hooked into my PC. I just have a few questions.

Buying a capture card (WinFAST, for example) I can hook my cable up to it. But, can I go through the cable box or do I have to go straight into the card? Also, do captures encode as MPEG DVD-compliant files or will I need to convert them?

And for anyone who does something similar (tv series, etc.) what is your best recommendations/set up solutions? I'm trying to go with this by not spending alot of money ($100 or so).

Thanks very much!

[redwudz]

Unless the channel you are recording is encoded, like HBO, you would just run the cable to the capture card and use the tuner in it to select the channel. You might need a splitter to use the cable box and the video card at the same time.

For a capture card, you can go with hardware encode, software encode, or capture in AVI and encode later to MPEG2.

Hardware encode needs less system resources, but may have limited adjustments. Software encode is more system intensive, but more flexible. Capturing to AVI and later encoding will generally get you the best quality, but takes time and effort and a lot of hard drive space.

It depends on what you want your final product to be. If you just plan to watch the video off the computer, maybe DIVX encoding would suit you better.

You might spend a little time at lord smurfs site. digitalfaq.com A lot of good capture info there.

[soloredd]

Thanks alot for the info and website, redwudz.

My only mission for this is to capture, say, a 3 hour basketball game so I can watch at a later time (I work nights and have school in the mornings - have to sleep!). I would like to burn these to DVD as well so I can have specific games archived to watch later (eg. if it's a last second shot or something).

I've been looking at the Hauppauge PVR250 because it has hardware encoding plus the RCA hookup. I've also been looking at ChrisTV or something similar which will let me record DVD files and have a scheduler. Using the Hauppauge, I can also watch TV without capturing, right?

[redwudz]

From this site; http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr250_datasheet.htm , it appears you can watch TV while you use the PC for other things.

[Coop]

Soloredd,

I'm doing exactly what you describe. I have a directv receiver wired into a Gainward Geforce 4 Ti4200 Ultra 650 Golden Sample video card. It captures to AVI format, which I then transcode to MPEG2.

You need a fairly fast PC with a large amount of hard drive space - a 3 hour game in my scenario results in file sizes of roughly 70 to 80 GB. Transcoding takes almost a full day of time - the faster your processor the quicker it goes.

I used a system similar to yours - built around an Athlon 1800 xp+. Capturing was fine, but transcoding took a LONG time. I upgraded to a newer system built around an Intel 3.2 GHZ processor with hyperthreading and the difference is huge...

Consider adding at LEAST another 80 GB drive or two to your system...

[neomaine]

solardd,

If you're planning to go to DVD at least some of the time, I'd get something that can go direct to mpeg2 for easy authoring. With my ATI All-in-Wonder (AIW), I get about 1.2gb per hour of recording with the following:

VIDEO: MPEG2, 720x480, 4500avg/6000max, default (but closed) GOP, interlaced
AUDIO: MPEG2, 48hz, 224k, stereo

Get wonderful output. I've got dish and capture from that so I don't use videosoap (an MMC option). You could probably use some if your capturing from cable. I've been capturing with ATI and using their Multi-Media Center (MMC) software for sometime to do exactly what you looking for with great results. Like any of your options you'll have a learning curve....but that's what we're all here for anyway.

You can pick up a used ATI AIW 8500 for $20-$30 on EBAY. Or go to a place like NEWEGG and pick up something new. Maybe even a TV-Wonder if you don't need the video card.

The reason I have you looking at such a low price option, besides getting great results with what I've mentioned, is that you should take the remaining money from your allotted ($100) total and pick up another hard drive and use it for your video work. Actually, with prices the way they are now, I'd pick up two. Reason is you can capture to one. Then if you need to edit out commercials or anything else you can output to another drive. Leaving your OS drive alone.

In synopsis, been there, done that (still doing it), recommend:

- Low price ATI AIW or TV Wonder. Download the latest Catalyst (video/capture drivers) and use MMC 8.7/8.9 (nice and stable versions)
- Two hard drives at 60gb apiece. Once for capture, one for archival and processing output.

PS: I used my ATI AIW 32mb DDR until a month ago. I got an ATI AIW 9600xt so I could play the more recent games. Otherwise, that 4yr old video/capture card would still be chugging away.

[SLICK RICK]

solardd,

If you're planning to go to DVD at least some of the time, I'd get something that can go direct to mpeg2 for easy authoring. With my ATI All-in-Wonder (AIW), I get about 1.2gb per hour of recording with the following:

VIDEO: MPEG2, 720x480, 4500avg/6000max, default (but closed) GOP, interlaced
AUDIO: MPEG2, 48hz, 224k, stereo

Get wonderful output. I've got dish and capture from that so I don't use videosoap (an MMC option). You could probably use some if your capturing from cable. I've been capturing with ATI and using their Multi-Media Center (MMC) software for sometime to do exactly what you looking for with great results. Like any of your options you'll have a learning curve....but that's what we're all here for anyway.

You can pick up a used ATI AIW 8500 for $20-$30 on EBAY. Or go to a place like NEWEGG and pick up something new. Maybe even a TV-Wonder if you don't need the video card.

The reason I have you looking at such a low price option, besides getting great results with what I've mentioned, is that you should take the remaining money from your allotted ($100) total and pick up another hard drive and use it for your video work. Actually, with prices the way they are now, I'd pick up two. Reason is you can capture to one. Then if you need to edit out commercials or anything else you can output to another drive. Leaving your OS drive alone.

In synopsis, been there, done that (still doing it), recommend:

- Low price ATI AIW or TV Wonder. Download the latest Catalyst (video/capture drivers) and use MMC 8.7/8.9 (nice and stable versions)
- Two hard drives at 60gb apiece. Once for capture, one for archival and processing output.

PS: I used my ATI AIW 32mb DDR until a month ago. I got an ATI AIW 9600xt so I could play the more recent games. Otherwise, that 4yr old video/capture card would still be chugging away.

Great advice.

[neomaine]