Best HD capture for laptop ?

[Chuteboxe39]

Hello all, I just recently purchased a kickass laptop, the SONY VAIO AR Series VGN-AR830E NoteBook. So now that I have a laptop, I want to be able to capture HDTV from my digital cable (suddenlink) directly onto my laptop's HD. So since I'm an ignorant piece of shit on the subject, would someone please enlighten me, what are my best options for this ? And once I get it onto my HD, what is the best way to convert, edit, and/or put onto a DVD, or in the case of HD, a HD DVD or blu-ray ? I would greatly appreciate any help, as I don't have a bunch of time or patience for that matter to search through the forums. Thank you in advance.

Specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT
2 x 200GB HD
3 GB DDR2 667

[yoda313]

You'll need to do it via firewire from a cable box.

If you want to do ota then a hdtv usb device will be acceptable.

Bluray would be the "best" recording format choice for portability. Though I think there is still a learning curve and media and burners are relatively pricey.

[Chuteboxe39]

hmm firewire from a cable box ? that only does live doesn't it ? and by ota you mean over the air ? also, would it be possible to capture an HD program, and burn it using my DL sony burner, or would it have to be converted to be burned, with a hit on quality ?

[yoda313]

If it is a high def dvr it will most likely have a firewire port. You can do recorded programs.

OTA is over the air yes.

There are differnt ways of capturing high def for dvd burning. THe pinnacle usb hd sticks actually allow you to capture over the air high def channels in mpeg2 dvd format WITH 5.1 audio and 16x9 widescreen format. It's great because you can record a broadcast and then right away author it to dvd without conversions - or edit commercials and then burn to dvd.

If you use program streams they will be in either .tp or .ts format and will require conversion to mpeg2 for normal dvd authoring. These days game consoles like the ps3 can play divx and h264 so you could retain high def and convert it to a portable format and not author the limited 720x480 dvd spec. HOwever you need to be sure your destination player can play your destination codec.

[jman98]

My personal feeling is that laptops make great toys and people that are REALLY serious about video capturing use tower PCs. Sorry, but having a laptop severely limits your choices. That is reality. You have no choice but to use USB devices and I feel that for the most part the PCI based capture solutions are better.

Cable boxes have firewire ports and it's possible to add drives to directly capture from a cable box under Windows. I do this all the time. Note that encrypted channels such as HBO probably won't work, but if you just want to capture local channels, Discovery, History, ESPN, etc. you should be fine. Some people can capture HBO, etc., in HD, but many cannot.

Note too that OTA reception is not something you can count on and depending on where you live, you may find that your OTA reception is great or horrible. Adding an antenna on your roof may help, but if you live far from the broadcasting towers, nothing is probably going to help much for OTA capture.

Finally, it is possible to burn BluRay content to single and dual layer DVD discs, but such discs may or may not play back on any given BluRay player.

[yoda313]

You have no choice but to use USB devices and I feel that for the most part the PCI based capture solutions are better

I have seen some pc card capture devices. I have no idea if any are hdtv or just standard. I also don't know if they'd be any better than usb.

Though I will say I am impressed with my pinnacle usb hdtv stick.

[Chuteboxe39]

My personal feeling is that laptops make great toys and people that are REALLY serious about video capturing use tower PCs. Sorry, but having a laptop severely limits your choices. That is reality. You have no choice but to use USB devices and I feel that for the most part the PCI based capture solutions are better.

Cable boxes have firewire ports and it's possible to add drives to directly capture from a cable box under Windows. I do this all the time. Note that encrypted channels such as HBO probably won't work, but if you just want to capture local channels, Discovery, History, ESPN, etc. you should be fine. Some people can capture HBO, etc., in HD, but many cannot.

Note too that OTA reception is not something you can count on and depending on where you live, you may find that your OTA reception is great or horrible. Adding an antenna on your roof may help, but if you live far from the broadcasting towers, nothing is probably going to help much for OTA capture.

Finally, it is possible to burn BluRay content to single and dual layer DVD discs, but such discs may or may not play back on any given BluRay player.

hmm. so with a PCI capture card, i would be able to capture just about anything ? and these USB devices are only capable of capturing OTA content ? I have a tower PC, but it stays in the 'office' with my flatscreen in the living area, i know this is impractical but would it be possible to run cables through to the other room (30-40 ft) ? you would just have to find a long ass cable right ..? I mean I'm not super serious about capturing, basically the primary reason i want to get this, is to capture media from HD or SD from specific channels like maybe spike, showtime, and versus, convert them to xvid to upload to a private tracker and/or author a dvd with it. Could i do this with just a laptop and the firewire method, or would I have to go the USB route, or would a PCI be the best solution ?

[jagabo]

If firewire doesn't work (and in my experience it usually doesn't because cable companies aren't interested in letting you archive shows) you will need to capture over-the-air broadcasts via an ATSC tuner device (like the Hauppauge HVR-1250) or from your cable box via the component outputs with something like a Blackmagic Intensity Pro or a Hauppauge HD PVR.

Oh, I forgot to mention QAM. Your cable company should be sending your local broadcast stations (and a few others) via unecrypted QAM. Most capture devices with ATSC tuners now also have QAM tuners. You will not be able to get most of the other digital stations though, they will be encrypted.

[edDV]

...hmm. ... ..? I mean I'm not super serious about capturing, basically the primary reason i want to get this, is to capture media from HD or SD from specific channels like maybe spike, showtime, and versus, convert them to xvid to upload to a private tracker and/or author a dvd with it. Could i do this with just a laptop and the firewire method, or would I have to go the USB route, or would a PCI be the best solution ?

You need to be ready for the complexity. If the cable channels you want aren't available as Firewire MPeg2_TS streams, then you need cutting edge USB products that capture from analog component. SD source has more choices. So far the HD source cutting edge are

1. Hauppauge HD PVR (HD analog component to HD h.264)
2. BlackMagic Video Recorder (HD analog component to SD h.264)
3. Geffen HD PVR
4. maybe others...

The BlackMagic Intensity is a PCI card. Others are mostly for OTA or clearQAM (not what you asked for).

[vhelp]

The draw back with laptops are that they do not have pci slots, and their built-in HDD's run at or around 5500 RPM's. Most desktop computers have PCI or -e slots and utilize 7200 RPM or greater, I think. I know that in all my computer rigs, the HDD's are IDE ATA-66 / ATA-100 or greater and they get by pretty well in my analog capture projects. I mostly perform analog capturing through my pci slot of cable tv, though noisy video but still worth the effort -- its a hobby sort of thing.

-vhelp 4872

[Chuteboxe39]

ok thanks guys for all your help i will check these things out.

[jagabo]

Here's a post that mentions a few other HD capture options:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic345063-30.html#1881508