capturing hd from cable/satellite

i know that most capture cards out there right now only have inputs for receiving local free ota hd and not from cable or satellite. what i'm wondering is how people were managing to record from premium channels like hbo in hd? this card from hauppauge http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html can do that, but on the page it claims that its the frst device that allows you to do that. if that's true what were people using before?

They were not able to record the premium channels. I have one of the HD PVR boxes and it works very well. It is not a card though. It is an external box that connects to your computer via USB, sort of like an external hard drive.

ic..so they probably had some sort of external device to record the signals?

ic..so they probably had some sort of external device to record the signals?As far as I know there was not any way to do that beyond a select few Directv receivers that could be modified to allow a Firewire output. For a list of these receivers and information of the modifications see: Transferring Recordings From HD Receiver to a PC (http://www.highdefinitionblog.com/?page_id=263#Xfer) Note: none of the satellite HD DVRs are listed, just receivers.

Otherwise until the external Hauppauge HD PVR you linked came out, there was nothing else. The HD tuner cards would do only OTA and unscrambled cable channels.

If you heard of someone recording HD programs in a computer, I'd guess they were recording it with a SD capture card. That was possible and it could be done in 16:9 widescreen which may have made people believe it was recorded HD.

there is another option:
http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonderdigital/index.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070109-8576.html

http://media.arstechnica.com/staff.media/ATI-DCT.jpg

notice how you can't buy this capture device from ATI. It isn't sold to the general public, only to big name PC manufaturers like DELL or HP. I first thought that I could buy a "cheap" dell that came with one of these and use the card on one of my thin custom-built HTPC's. No dice. The hardware checks for a flag in the motherboard's bios, making it difficult (as well as illegal) to integrate this into your current HTPC setup. It also needs a cable card (that you can get from your cable provider, hopefully). It doesn't work for satellite companies, only cable ones.

A barebones XPS 420 from Dell will run you about $1100 including one of those tuners. I customized one to something I would consider building and it came out to about $2400 including 2 of those tuners. Aside from the silly price, it's a mid-tower form factor computer, not that elegant to have in your living room. Barring those tuners, I could build an equal system in a smaller form factor for $1000. When did Dell get so expensive?

Anyways, yeah. That turner is another option. The advantage over that HD PVR is that the record quality could be better, since it is digitally feeding your computer via USB. It also lets you browse and flip through channels through your HTPC VMC interface. The downside (other that the ones I mentioned) is that broadcast companies can put a Content restriction flag on programs, making you unable to record them in media center. The device also fails to tune unencrypted channels if you don't have a cable card.

I'm waiting for the day when they make a device like that that can be bought publically and put internally into a small formfactor HTPC - as well as lifting those recording restrictions. Until then, the Hauppauge HD-PVR looks to be the sweetest thing.

While the record quality could be better as I understand it it will also have DRM as part of the deal that prevents you from making a DVD copy of the recording. The HD PVR will even allow a HD copy to be recorded to play in a Blu-ray player apparently to a regular DVD. Not at Blu-ray quality though and I haven't tried it yet.

As far as I know there was not any way to do that beyond a select few Directv receivers that could be modified to allow a Firewire output. For a list of these receivers and information of the modifications see: Transferring Recordings From HD Receiver to a PC (http://www.highdefinitionblog.com/?page_id=263#Xfer) Note: none of the satellite HD DVRs are listed, just receivers.

Otherwise until the external Hauppauge HD PVR you linked came out, there was nothing else. The HD tuner cards would do only OTA and unscrambled cable channels.

If you heard of someone recording HD programs in a computer, I'd guess they were recording it with a SD capture card. That was possible and it could be done in 16:9 widescreen which may have made people believe it was recorded HD.


well that doesn't make any sense then. although i don't condone downloading movies and tv shows off of bit torrent ;) you could easily find hd rips of shows like entourage from hbo on the internet, usually within hours of the initial showing. so there must be another way

There are ways that can be put together by hackers for sure, but I thought we were talking about commercially available equipment. Those guys can just about steal anything and will spend hours upon hours just for the thrill of being able to do it.