Using my Computer as a VCR

[RobertSmith]

I know it's possible to watch TV on my computer(although mine is not currently rigged up for that yet) How would I go about seting up my computer to record stuff on TV like I would with my VCR?


P.S What's a good(and cost effective) TV tuner/Video Capture card(I just need that not a Video Card)?

[KingJohn]

Take a look at this card http://www.hauppauge.com/
Quite a lot of people (Including myself) use them.

[Vejita-sama]

You'll need some kind of capture card. You can get a TV card (has tuner built in) or one without (would need VCR or some other hardware). You'll still need to plug in an antenna or cable source to get anything thou

The Hauppauge winTV line is popular and the basic model is $50.

[RobertSmith]

Vejita I want to record TV programs using my Computer instead of a VCR(Which I need to buy and my dorm room is small).

On the Average how many megabytes will a 1 hour program take up?

[Dman65]

If you are buying a new computer you should be getting one that is faster than 750mhz so you should be able to capture MPEG1, MPEG2, or MPEG4 (DivX) real time with quality acceptable for watching TV recordings. This would be about 10 - 15 megabytes per minute based on my experience. I know some people encode DivX at about 5 megabytes per minute, but everything I have seen running at that rate has been of poor quality to my eyes.

[RobertSmith]

My Current System Specs

AMD Athlon 800mhz
256megs ram
Tnt2 M64 video card(I plan to get a Geforce 2 mx400)
Sound Blaster PCI 128 sound Card
Some Generic DVD-ROM(10x)
30 gig hard drive(I have a extra 20 gig not installed yet)

[Dman65]

Your system should handle real time recording in MPEG1 or 2 of 320x240 at 30fps based on what I have read on cards that are geared specifically for what you are doing.

Several of the cards now come with "PVR" programs that will let you schedule the time and channel you want to record.
I hope someone else here has experience with them. I had to write my own custom program for that because I use DirecTV (sattelite) and the programs I saw had no way to change the channel on the receiver.

Make sure you find out a stable system for doing the recording. It took me 6 weeks, three different motherboards, and several driver downloads before I got my system stable enough that I leave for the day and am 90% sure my show will be taped. Which is better than my odds using my old vcr that I would forget to turn off so it would be ready to record.

[Fillster]

Same question essentially as above. Familiar with hardware (capture card,etc) but is there any program as good (or close) as replayTV? Are there any services that will do the automated schedule thing like replayTV where I can just tell it once to record all Sopranos episodes?

Hardware: Running Duron 800 mhz with Raid 0 setup and geforce2 32meg GTS. Would love rec's on capture card and software!

TIA,

Fil

[RobertSmith]

The WinTV-PVR is that the only card that can record off a TV singal? 240 bucks gees that's too much. I want something low cost.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RobertSmith on 2001-08-28 14:00:41 ]</font>

[Xitanium]

whaa? i have a Cybermail AV card that can do it, just hook up the vcr to it (or other RCA/SVID cables) or if u have digital cable/sattelite then use the svideo directly. works fine for me. btw, i got it for $14.50 at compugeeks.com

[KingJohn]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-28 13:50:24, RobertSmith wrote:
The WinTV-PVR is that the only card that can record off a TV singal? 240 bucks gees that's too much. I want something low cost.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

$240 ?, its not that much is it ?

Thought not
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?prodzip=&product_code=260799

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: letmeinforgodsake on 2001-08-28 16:12:10 ]</font>

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
$240 ?, its not that much is it ?

Thought not
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?prodzip=&product_code=260799
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

winTV PVR is not winTV Go. PVR has a hardware encoder, and runs in the $200-300 range

[RobertSmith]

When you make 75 bucks a week and have other expensices yes 240 is alot just to beable to Record stuff off a TV broad cast.

I think I'll just get a cheap ATI-TV Wonder.

What is the difference between MPeg-1 encoding and VCR-1 encoding? I know Mpeg1 is VCD format.

[CordeliaII]

the wintv go is a good cheap option at around $40-50

winvcr 2 can do reasonable software mpeg capture. there is a thread on this forum about using some 3rd party dll's with winvcr to get much much better quality. i've started using this method and it is good.
search around for the thread, it is quite recent.

[RobertSmith]

With WinVCR(or any other simular program) would it be possible to record 2 things at the same time.


I ask again on the average how much space will 1 hour of MPEG-1 recording take up?

[Dman65]

Robert,

In order to record two things at the same time you would have to have two tuner cards or a video card that has more than one ACTIVE input. I have seen a few of these for security applications, but they are out of the price range you are shooting for. I don't know which if any of the popular cards can have two installed at the same time.

Since you have an 800mhz card my guess is that if you wanted to record two things at the same time your capture cards would have to both be hardware MPEG cards. Someone may know something that proves me wrong, but I have doubts that an 800mhz machine could software encode two MPEG-1 streams at the same time reliably. Though I would like to know if anyone has done this and what hardware they were using.

As far as the size of one hour in MPEG-1 goes, it depends on the bitrate you choose. If you were to choose VCD the overall (video + audio) bitrate would be 1,374kilobits per sec. This would translate to 171.75 kiloBytes/sec which would mean approximately 618MBytes per hour. You will more than likely want to pump up the bps though for watchable real time capture. If you took it to XVCD bit rates (~2724 kilobits/sec) You would be looking in the 1.2 gigabyte/hour range. You will have to experiment to see what bitrate you find satisfactory.

[KingJohn]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-29 03:41:02, RobertSmith wrote:
When you make 75 bucks a week and have other expensices yes 240 is alot just to beable to Record stuff off a TV broad cast.
I think I'll just get a cheap ATI-TV Wonder.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I took out a ATI TV Card and put in the WinTV, its much better.

$50 = £31, I think they are less in the UK

[SHS]

RobertSmith the WinTV-PVR/Dazzle DVC2 is real-time MPEG1,2 hardware not some lame software base MPEG1,2 soft capture apps some of the other capture card or so called real-time MPEG1,2 recording is real know as Soft real-time MPEG1,2 recording only hardware base MPEG1,2 capture card can do real-time MPEG1,2 capture.

Software base MPEG1,2 capture are ATI AIW or TV Wonder, WinDVR, PowerVCR, WinVCR just name a few.
One thing you have keep in mind is not to run any other apps win doing software base MPEG1,2 capture the same alppy to AVI capturing.
One bad thing about Software base MPEG1,2 capture you can't go any higher 352x240 MPEG1 format and need very fast system
at less 600+

MPEG1 avg is about 650MB per 1hour

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SHS on 2001-08-29 11:11:24 ]</font>

[RobertSmith]

The All in Wounder Radon what is the general thought of that(For both recording TV and as a 3d GPU)?
I was planing to get a Geforce 2 MX400 card in the future(and maybe the hardware needed to record stuff)

I never had ATI video Cards before(I'm a Nvdia Fan)

[Dr Evil]

I use a $50 Pinnacle PCTV, and can capture at 640X480; 29.97 fps easily, with MINIMAL frame drop using VirtualDub.

[hitechjunkie]

hey doc, did u upgrade ur system?