Wide World of Women

I am thinking about getting an HD DVR and thought that i might start doing some caps/video. i would appreciate any advice/suggestions on what I need to accomplish this (what do I hookup to my computer and DVR, is VLC player good enough for caps, etc.)

thanks.

There are a couple options for you. There are some usb and tuner cards that can capture OTA (CBS, NBC, ect). If you want to get vids off your DVR you have two choices that I can think of.

Get a hauppauge hd pvr. Its a usb device that can record from a source that has component outputs. It will record anything that your HD DVR has on its hard drive, including live video. I know donk uses this pretty regular so he may chime in about the details for this method.

The other method is if you have comcast as your cable provider, you can record via firewire. But not any cable box will work though. If you have comcast then I can go further into detail with this if you like.

Just to add a few things to what RR said....

With firewire, I think it's pretty much any service that has a Motorola box with firewire support. I know Ice can cap through his Fios STB through firewire. If I'm not mistake, there aren't any 64 bit drivers for STB's yet so if you have a 64 bit system you may not be able to capture with that method.

With a tuner you can also record cable or fios QAM signal for unscrambled channels. That would limited to your local channels and PBS. Most tuners also have an S-video or composite input you can capture analog signal from a STB. With s-vid or composite the picture won't be as crisp as direct firewire copies, and you are only limited to maximum resolution of 720x480 interlaced.

Hauppauge HDPVR is great, but it won't be stream copies like firewire or recording with a tuner OTA with an antenna or QAM with cable. The benefits are, like RR said you can record ANY HD source with component out where firewire is limited to unflagged channels. I'm not a big fan of the h.264 transport stream files since you have to convert them before most people can play them back or to edit them down in a frame accurate manor. Also, you need either a really fast processor or a graphics card with h.264 decode to play the files back.

i do have comcast

Just remember you will not be able to record encrypted channels (movie channels primarily, but there are other odd channels that are blocked as well).

pm coming your way.

Could you send me the info too? I have comcast and am thinking about going HD.

I just tested my Fios STB with firewire and CapVHS. The quality is unmatched, but the only downside I see so far is like OTA there are usually mpeg stream errors. I've lost over 5 minutes of content in a one hour show. The biggest plus for me with firewire is that mpeg-2 format is sooo much easier to edit down and requires no converting.