TV Tuner Card

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dochielomn
Posts: 216
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

TV Tuner Card

Post by dochielomn »

So hypothetically, if I wanted a way to copy a tv show off of my DVR onto my computer (and basically create a saved file on my computer and then be able to delete the show from the DVR), what would be the best way to acheive this? Would it be to have a video card that also has a tv tuner in it? Or is there another means?
dochielomn
Posts: 216
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by dochielomn »

Doing some research about this and I guess the answer is really that i need a video capture card in the computer (and then it claims that windows movie maker can do the software part of it). If this is the case, any suggestions on one? I know I have a few programs that I'd like to save and then free up space on the DVR. I'd basically consider this a bigger priority over the other video card topic that i started.

One quick edit- I might already have something like this at home. I'll have to wait until i get home tonight and then test but I think what I have will work and thus make all of this irrevelant, :).
Adam
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:50 pm

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by Adam »

What is your DVR? Off the shelf Cox unit? If so you can just plug in a USB hard drive to add more space to the DVR (supposed to work on any of the Motorola DVRs). I never tested this as they added this capability after I installed my HTPC and got rid of the Cox DVR.
dochielomn
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Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by dochielomn »

My DVR is a Motorola DCH3416 (via COX). I've had it since somewhere between 2006-2008 would be my guess. I want to say a year or 2 ago, Sarah's siblings bought me a Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 so I could turn some of my VHS tapes into a DVD. Once I did the research and saw something about a video capture device, it triggered the fact that I had the DVC100 (because when it records the tv stream to the computer, it calls it a capture.avi file). So just now, I hooked up the DVC100 to my DVR and plugged it into my laptop and did what I normally do with the software, I was able to record exactly what was being displayed on my tv. I tried for 30 seconds and it was recorded live tv and made into an AVI file and then when I played it back, it worked perfectly. Now all I need to do is figure how to get the Pinnacle software onto my desktop as when I connected it to the desktop, the computer didn't want to install one of the drivers.

However, also note, I do have a USB port on the DVR so it is possible I could hook up an external HD to add more space. And I just did try hooking up an external HD to the DVR via the USB (yes, I also made sure to connect the power to the external HD) and nothing changed. I'm gonna guess that I probably need to do something else to configure it to work properly.
kevm14
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Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by kevm14 »

I like the potential of this thread to turn into a pitch for Windows Media Center.

If space is what you're after, I recommend Mulligan's approach of looking into adding drive space.

For tuners/capture cards, here are two:

The fancier model:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815116037

The simpler model:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815116028

But honestly, you're looking at RF modulated NTSC which is terrible. This is going to be an unbelievably painful and clunky process with mediocre results.

There are other products that do component HD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... =Hauppauge
dochielomn
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Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by dochielomn »

I'd be looking for more space as well as the ability to turn a tv show into a computer file. So the capture card thing I have works well enough for my purposes. Eventually got it to install on my desktop and tried it out there and it worked fine. Only issue is that the capture card AVI file is usually pretty big (several gigs for like 1 hr most likely).
Adam
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:50 pm

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by Adam »

dochielomn wrote:Only issue is that the capture card AVI file is usually pretty big (several gigs for like 1 hr most likely).
Turns out HD video is big. My HTPC has 1700MB reserved for recording which equates to ~200 hrs of HD content. That's over 8GB/hr. You could compress it some, or re-encode it to a lower resolution to save some space.
dochielomn
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Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by dochielomn »

Yeah, think I'll probably end up compressing and see what it looks like. If it's really bad, then perhaps I'll go into the settings and see if I can lower some things.
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by kevm14 »

The standard recommendation would be to feed the AVI into something that outputs an H.264 encoded file. There are several wrappers available, such as MKV, that should work alright. Handbrake is a full featured transcoding program. But that may be overkill for what you need. I haven't used it in years. And I'm glad for it. As I've ripped my DVDs over the years, I remember originally wondering if I should go to H.264 to save about 50% of the drive space. I ended up just doing VOB/MPEG-2 rips (native DVD format) and I am so glad I did. Drive space is cheap.
dochielomn
Posts: 216
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: TV Tuner Card

Post by dochielomn »

So just to finish this thread off from my perspective, I was able to use a video capture device that Sarah's siblings had purchased for me previously. I hooked it up (via composite) to the DVR itself and then connected the USB end into the computer and using the software that came with the device (Pinaccle Studio 14), it was clearly able to allow me to capture anything off of the DVR into a computer file. I fiddled with the video quality a bit to get it to an acceptable level for me (in terms of how big of a mpg file it was creating) and ultimately, I'm satisfied with the results. Tried it out on Sunday and basically was able to make tape a 50 min show (FF'ing through commercials) into a 1.12 GB file.
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