Using Mac as a DVR

[danielmak]

My DVD recorder is starting to go and rather than buy a new one, I figure it's time to switch to recording soccer games with my computer, so I'm wondering if someone who is working with a Mac to do something similar can help me with some specs:

1. What do I need in terms of processor speed, ram, etc. to capture HD and SD matches (this would be from DirecTV)? I currently have a Macbook Pro laptop, which I also use for work, so ideally I would transfer files from my DVR to my computer and then dump the files on a portable hard drive.

2. Would I need any other hardware or can I run straight from my DVR to my computer? If I need hardware, what do I need?

3. What is the best software for capturing *both* MPEG 1 or 2 *and* MKV or TS? I see that Elegato's eyeTV HD can record h.264 but I don't see anything listed for containers--MKV or TS--and I don't see anything listed for MPEG1 or 2, which I would need if I transfer to DVD to send to other collectors.

Thanks.

[usually_quiet]

An EyeTV HD or Hauppauge's HD PVR with the HD PVR Capture application or EyeTV 3.1 (or higher) software would be your best option for HDTV capture on your Mac. You would use component video cables and RCA stereo or optical S/PDIF to connect your satellite receiver/DVR to the HD capture device and connect the HD PVR to your laptop via USB 2.0. I think you will find the answers you need at the manufacturer and software publisher's websites.

[danielmak]

An EyeTV HD or Hauppauge's HD PVR with the HD PVR Capture application or EyeTV 3.1 (or higher) software would be your best option for HDTV capture on your Mac. You would use component video cables and RCA stereo or optical S/PDIF to connect your satellite receiver/DVR to the HD capture device and connect the HD PVR to your laptop via USB 2.0. I think you will find the answers you need at the manufacturer and software publisher's websites.

Thanks. I have been exploring these options over the past couple months. Can folks recommend one or the other (EyeTV or Hauppauge) as a better option?

Also, it seems that Elegato software for EyeTV or Hauppauge or another 3rd party Mac option for Hauppauge only capture to .TS. There do not seem to be any MPEG or MKV options. Have a missed any 3rd party software options for the Mac that could record MPEG or MKV?

[edDV]

An EyeTV HD or Hauppauge's HD PVR with the HD PVR Capture application or EyeTV 3.1 (or higher) software would be your best option for HDTV capture on your Mac. You would use component video cables and RCA stereo or optical S/PDIF to connect your satellite receiver/DVR to the HD capture device and connect the HD PVR to your laptop via USB 2.0. I think you will find the answers you need at the manufacturer and software publisher's websites.

Thanks. I have been exploring these options over the past couple months. Can folks recommend one or the other (EyeTV or Hauppauge) as a better option?

Also, it seems that Elegato software for EyeTV or Hauppauge or another 3rd party Mac option for Hauppauge only capture to .TS. There do not seem to be any MPEG or MKV options. Have a missed any 3rd party software options for the Mac that could record MPEG or MKV?

You don't even identify your country?

The basics.
1. ATSC/DVB/QAM tuners just record the subchannel digital stream without recode hence TS (transport stream).
2. Analog inputs are usually hardware encoded to MPeg2 or h.264 depending on device.

[danielmak]

An EyeTV HD or Hauppauge's HD PVR with the HD PVR Capture application or EyeTV 3.1 (or higher) software would be your best option for HDTV capture on your Mac. You would use component video cables and RCA stereo or optical S/PDIF to connect your satellite receiver/DVR to the HD capture device and connect the HD PVR to your laptop via USB 2.0. I think you will find the answers you need at the manufacturer and software publisher's websites.

Thanks. I have been exploring these options over the past couple months. Can folks recommend one or the other (EyeTV or Hauppauge) as a better option?

Also, it seems that Elgato software for EyeTV or Hauppauge or another 3rd party Mac option for Hauppauge only capture to .TS. There do not seem to be any MPEG or MKV options. Have a missed any 3rd party software options for the Mac that could record MPEG or MKV?

You don't even identify your country?

The basics.
1. ATSC/DVB/QAM tuners just record the subchannel digital stream without recode hence TS (transport stream).
2. Analog inputs are usually hardware encoded to MPeg2 or h.264 depending on device.

I am in the United States. I posted a message on the EyeTV forum and an Elgato Tech wrote back that the software only captures h.264 .TS. I also wrote Steve, who created HDPVRCapture (the Hauppauge recommended software for a Mac) and he said that his software only captures .TS as well.

[edDV]

In the USA all ATSC and QAM broadcasts are MPeg2 in a packetized MPeg Transport Stream. You can change the container from TS to mpg or mkv without recode.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_transport_stream

Also these MPeg2 transport streams (SD or HD) are AVCHD Blu-Ray disc ready (DVDR or BD media) without recode. An AVCHD disk requires re-wrapping in m2ts. See MultiAVCHD.
http://multiavchd.deanbg.com/tutorial.php

As for DirectTV, HD would be captured via the analog component outputs to Elgato eyeTV and the result would be hardware encoded h.264. SD could be captured off the S-Video output.

None of the above puts a serious load on a MacBook during capture since no CPU encoding is going on. Playback may be another matter depending on GPU decode support.

[danielmak]

Thanks, ed. That's very helpful. Playback won't be a problem; I use an AC Ryan media player that has its own HDD.

[rumplestiltskin]

Any of the EyeTV recordings may be exported to other formats (or exported as .ts and then transcoded using Handbrake or MPEG Streamclip) should you wish to retain a smaller, yet high-quality, version.

[usually_quiet]

An EyeTV HD or Hauppauge's HD PVR with the HD PVR Capture application or EyeTV 3.1 (or higher) software would be your best option for HDTV capture on your Mac. You would use component video cables and RCA stereo or optical S/PDIF to connect your satellite receiver/DVR to the HD capture device and connect the HD PVR to your laptop via USB 2.0. I think you will find the answers you need at the manufacturer and software publisher's websites.

Thanks. I have been exploring these options over the past couple months. Can folks recommend one or the other (EyeTV or Hauppauge) as a better option?

Also, it seems that Elegato software for EyeTV or Hauppauge or another 3rd party Mac option for Hauppauge only capture to .TS. There do not seem to be any MPEG or MKV options. Have a missed any 3rd party software options for the Mac that could record MPEG or MKV?

I am not aware of any external USB HD analog capture devices with no tuner for OSX (or Windows either) that can record HD video in MPEG-2 format. Tuner-equipped external devices like the EyeTV 250 Plus are a different story. They usually capture SD video from a set-top box in MPEG-2 format, but none can perform HD capture. If you want both SD and HD capture capability for recording from your satellite receiver, the EyeTV HD or Hauppauge's HD PVR are the only devices I have seen that can work with your laptop. MPEG2 capture is impossible because they encode using hardware, and H.264 is the only option provided.

I can't tell you which is better. You have to decide which is best. EyeTV is Mac-only, so it is probably easier to set up, but it only records stereo audio and has no A/V pass through. The Hauppauge HD-PVR is popular in the Windows community, although OSX-compatible drivers and software are available. The Hauppauge HD-PVR has the ability to record 5.1 audio from the digital optical audio input, plus it has a A/V pass-through so you can watch the same programming on your TV that you are recording.

I don't use a Mac, but ffmpegx is popular conversion software for OSX that seems capable of performing the conversion from H.264 to DVD-compatible MPEG2. However, converting HD recordings and authoring a playable DVD will take a few hours. Moving H.264 to an .mkv container without re-encoding should be quick and trivial. HandBrake or ffmpegx may be able to do that, but I can't test them.

[danielmak]

I was all set to go with the Hauppauge because of the audio options, but then I was reading about Apple's inclusion of Thunderbolt in their new iMacs. At the bottom of the page about Thunderbolt Apple lists 2 different video capture devices: Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D and Matrox MX02. Both are much more expensive than the Elgato and the Hauppauge but both seem to offer a truer HD capture via HDMI and the Thunderbolt ports would ideally mean a faster transfer time to a portable drive. So, I'm sort of back with the same questions that I began with in that:
(1) could the Blackmagic and/or Matrox be used to capture HD programming from my DirecTV DVR or are these input ports on these 2 devices only set up to connect to video cameras?

(2) And if these high end video capture devices would work for my needs, can I (we) expect that the next iteration of consumer video capture devices will feature HDMI inputs?

(3) Finally, because the capture devices are designed for video production the devices tend to work with programs like Final Cut, but could I use a less sophisticated program in conjunction with one of these devices since all I want to do is capture the best possible images and sounds from my DVR and to cut out the mountain of DVD-Rs that are accumulating in my apartment?

Thanks again for any advice.

[edDV]

(1) could the Blackmagic and/or Matrox be used to capture HD programming from my DirecTV DVR or are these input ports on these 2 devices only set up to connect to video cameras?

The problem capturing off HDMI is HDCP encryption. DirecTV doesn't want you to do this. Analog SD S-video or SD/HD analog component are the only options.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content_Protection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole

Blackmagic, Matrox and others are prevented by law from recording HDCP flagged material.

(2) And if these high end video capture devices would work for my needs, can I (we) expect that the next iteration of consumer video capture devices will feature HDMI inputs?

Over Hollywood's dead body.

These HDMI devices are intended for camera capture.

(3) Finally, because the capture devices are designed for video production the devices tend to work with programs like Final Cut, but could I use a less sophisticated program in conjunction with one of these devices since all I want to do is capture the best possible images and sounds from my DVR and to cut out the mountain of DVD-Rs that are accumulating in my apartment?

The devices are new. Expect support from edit and live streaming software vendors.

[usually_quiet]

I was all set to go with the Hauppauge because of the audio options, but then I was reading about Apple's inclusion of Thunderbolt in their new iMacs. At the bottom of the page about Thunderbolt Apple lists 2 different video capture devices: Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D and Matrox MX02. Both are much more expensive than the Elgato and the Hauppauge but both seem to offer a truer HD capture via HDMI and the Thunderbolt ports would ideally mean a faster transfer time to a portable drive. So, I'm sort of back with the same questions that I began with in that:
(1) could the Blackmagic and/or Matrox be used to capture HD programming from my DirecTV DVR or are these input ports on these 2 devices only set up to connect to video cameras?

(2) And if these high end video capture devices would work for my needs, can I (we) expect that the next iteration of consumer video capture devices will feature HDMI inputs?

(3) Finally, because the capture devices are designed for video production the devices tend to work with programs like Final Cut, but could I use a less sophisticated program in conjunction with one of these devices since all I want to do is capture the best possible images and sounds from my DVR and to cut out the mountain of DVD-Rs that are accumulating in my apartment?

Thanks again for any advice.

I have seen a couple of reports saying that the Hauppauge Colossus could record from the HDMI port on a DirecTV receiver, which means there was no HDCP. However this may not be true for all DirecTV's HD receivers or all programming, merely some models or some programming. You could still need to use analog component video for your captures. The Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D has a breakout port, which (I think) accepts a breakout cable to supply analog video inputs. The Matrox MX02 has component video inputs.

I think both the Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D and Matrox MX02 are primarily intended for capturing to ProRes or other lightly compressed formats used by video professionals. It seems doubtful that consumer grade editing software could easily be used to work directly with captures from either device. Lightly compressed codecs create very large files, so lots of hard disc space is needed to store recordings prior to re-encoding to H.264 or MPEG-2.

The Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D doesn't appear to capture audio at all, so I don't think it would be very useful for recording TV by itself.

The Matrox MX02 does capture audio, but still seems like overkill to me. it. Its documentation says it can do hardware assisted H.264 encoding with some 3rd party software and Matrox's Vetura Capture software supports MPEG-2 capture, but even so, I think it is better suited to a professional work environment. You will spend $$$$ on the device, plus software that works well with it, and will then have to master that software.

Get the Hauppauge HD-PVR. It is a proven solution that costs less and works better with consumer-oriented software. 5.1 audio should be fine. I don't know of any TV broadcast currently supplying 7.1 audio.

[danielmak]

Ed and Usually Quiet,

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed replies. i will go with the Hauppauge. I know there is a separate forum for capturing but I'll pose this question here since I will be working with a Mac. I have a good sense of my specs for capturing HD content since people who share soccer recordings always list the specs with the files (bitrate between 3,000 and 6,000 kbs; 1280X720) but I don't have any sense of general specs for recording SD because those files tend to be smaller (for ease of Internet transfer) than what I record currently to DVD-R via my set-top recorder. If I want to record SD programming from DirecTV, what should I go with in terms of bitrate and width/height so I can stay as close as possible to the quality of the original broadcast? Also, I have noticed that MKV and TS HD files often use framerates that are not standard NTSC and PAL (59.94). When recording SD, what should I do in terms of framerate--stick with NTSC since that's the standard or is there some advantage to using 59.94?

Thanks again.

[usually_quiet]

Ed and Usually Quiet,

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed replies. i will go with the Hauppauge. I know there is a separate forum for capturing but I'll pose this question here since I will be working with a Mac. I have a good sense of my specs for capturing HD content since people who share soccer recordings always list the specs with the files (bitrate between 3,000 and 6,000 kbs; 1280X720) but I don't have any sense of general specs for recording SD because those files tend to be smaller (for ease of Internet transfer) than what I record currently to DVD-R via my set-top recorder. If I want to record SD programming from DirecTV, what should I go with in terms of bitrate and width/height so I can stay as close as possible to the quality of the original broadcast? Also, I have noticed that MKV and TS HD files often use framerates that are not standard NTSC and PAL (59.94). When recording SD, what should I do in terms of framerate--stick with NTSC since that's the standard or is there some advantage to using 59.94?

Thanks again.

I can't help you with this. I record programming for my own enjoyment and only re-encode to transfer a few things to DVD now and then for a few relatives, who aren't able to manage recording the output of a digital cable box using their VCR. I don't share video with others online.

[danielmak]

Ed and Usually Quiet,

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed replies. i will go with the Hauppauge. I know there is a separate forum for capturing but I'll pose this question here since I will be working with a Mac. I have a good sense of my specs for capturing HD content since people who share soccer recordings always list the specs with the files (bitrate between 3,000 and 6,000 kbs; 1280X720) but I don't have any sense of general specs for recording SD because those files tend to be smaller (for ease of Internet transfer) than what I record currently to DVD-R via my set-top recorder. If I want to record SD programming from DirecTV, what should I go with in terms of bitrate and width/height so I can stay as close as possible to the quality of the original broadcast? Also, I have noticed that MKV and TS HD files often use framerates that are not standard NTSC and PAL (59.94). When recording SD, what should I do in terms of framerate--stick with NTSC since that's the standard or is there some advantage to using 59.94?

Thanks again.

I can't help you with this. I record programming for my own enjoyment and only re-encode to transfer a few things to DVD now and then for a few relatives, who aren't able to manage recording the output of a digital cable box using their VCR. I don't share video with others online.

Thanks. I am not really looking to share on-line either. When I exchange new games the situation is similar (more or less) to what you describe. Someone I know in Europe can't get a game that is on TV here and I can't get a game that's only on TV there. So my question was less about re-encoding than a straight capture--how to capture with the hauppauge when I am recording SD programming since there doesn't seem to be a model for this that I have found in the usual sites I visit since people either record HD programming or they radically shrink SD programming. What I want to do is cut out the DVD-R but record with the Hauppage in a way that is as good as a DVD-R via my set-top or better if there is some compression happening with my set-top that I can avoid when recroding with the Hauppage. I posted a similar question on a soccer forum where people talk about media and technology but I got no replies (again, perhaps because people aren't recording SD in this way).

[usually_quiet]

I still can't help you. I mostly record SD TV using a TV tuner card that lets me capture the ATSC/clear QAM MPEG-2 program stream as is. When I don't do that, I use the same TV tuner card's S-Video connection to capture the analog video from my set top box in MPEG-2 format, not H.264.