Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: IceFire on January 03, 2011, 04:57:31 pm
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One of the last vestiges of the late 20th century still dominates my house and that is an old school VCR which is almost totally useless to me these days. I would like to record some TV shows if only because I'm finding that everything I want to watch is on Monday night. At the same time. So I can rent from my cable company a DVR for almost 20 bucks a month or... is there another option that might be cheaper or make more sense long run? Thoughts?
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tv tuner for your PC or buy your own tivo/dvr is all i can think of.
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torrent your tv shows
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I think you might be out of luck with the VCR or DVD if you are using HDMI. If I recall correctly the recording device needs to come between the cable in and the TV. If you're using coax you can still get away with it but If your connecting up with HDMI I don't think you can find a VCR/DVD that can input/output with it and as far as I know Blu Ray players don't come in writable. I'm under the impression they want to push you into using DVR nowadays.
If you come up with a solution I'm all ears because I ran into this awhile back.
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DVR's are probably the best option. I tried looking into making a PVR awhile back and the stuff to do it for HDTV either isn't available or is illegal. They really don't want you to have any way to get HD programming onto your computer other then playing DVDs.
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If your specific shows are available for streaming from Netflix, it'll cost you something like $10 a month I think. A lot of people that I know choose to buy it instead of cable (and just have it stream to an XBox or something). I don't know if they have the "latest" TV shows like Hulu does though.
DVR might be simpler and more all-inclusive, so maybe worth the extra ten bucks.
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TV shows are pretty late coming to netflix. they go with the DVD release at the earliest.
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Also the Netflix library in for the Canadian version of Netflix is very small right now. I've noticed that both my 360 and PS3 have support for it and most of the smartphones I'm considering signing on to have support for it too (which is cool!) but the library is small.
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Building your own HTPC isn't very hard or expensive and the "How To" is pretty well documented on the internet. All you need is a HD hybrid TV tuner card, a HD Video card, as much memory as you can get your hands on, and a large hard drive. I put one together for less than $200 with an old computer I had laying around. I think you need more than one tuner card if you want to record more than one show at a time though. Just Google HTPC DIY and off you go.
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If you cable/sat provider sends in a format that the cards can decode. A lot of providers make you use their boxes with their software and TV cards wont work.
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really? that blows. i was thinking about getting a TV tuner but i guess i'll have to do some in-depth research.
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There are cards that can do it. I think they are kind of pricey and for American cable providers though.
http://www.cetoncorp.com/products.php (http://www.cetoncorp.com/products.php)
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Yea there are supposed to be products but try actually finding them. DirectTV had one ready to go about 3 years ago but canned it due to mickysoft (yea no *nix or mac even though DTV receivers are a stripped down *nix box), driver issues, and of course the FCC. It's the whole if you get a program you paid to watch recorded on your computer you're a thief thing. Ever notice all the PPV and even the free streaming programs have expiration dates and self delete now? Regular shows don't so they don't want you to be able to back them up and watch them again without paying.
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Also the Netflix library in for the Canadian version of Netflix is very small right now. I've noticed that both my 360 and PS3 have support for it and most of the smartphones I'm considering signing on to have support for it too (which is cool!) but the library is small.
To be fair, the streaming library for The States is pretty small, as well.
My biggest pet peeve about the service is the lack of subtitles / closed captions, though.
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get yourself one or two of something like one of these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116033), set up a myth back-end somewhere. the biggest problem with myth though is it's front end UI sucks, and the developers are actively hostile to coming up with a standard that other people could make alternatives for. but if you can handle not using a mouse and the TV program taking over the computer while you are using it (or only watching recorded shows) then this can work well.
alternatively you can use WMC, which has sort of the opposite issues, it has a really slick UI, but it's functionality is lacking (for instance you cannot watch TV from anywhere other than the computer with the tuner). but for a single computer solution it's the way to go for now.
also keep in mind nothing digital will work with any* tuner cards right now, so everything will be low def.
*only unencrypted channels can be tuned, but everything except QVC and the weather channel are encrypted, there are some tuner cards capable of accepting a cablecard, but they cannot work outside of a fully proprietary environment, this is not merely saying it won't work in linux, you need special bios special version of windows and special drivers to get them to work properly
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Well it doesn't sound like a tuner card and a media center will do... Most of the shows are streaming off the Canadian broadcasters (whoever they partner with) websites so maybe it's worth saving the $200 to rent a HD/PVR and I'll just invest in a bigger monitor that I can watch the stuff on my PC. I don't know...
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while we're on the topic, anyone know how to get DVR video onto a computer? does it require some sort of video capture card? i THINK i can do it by DVR->DVD->rip->convert, but that's a lot of conversions and quality loss. it's a concert, and i'm pretty sure the audio mix would get lost in all that. if anyone knows a more direct route, i'd apprechiate the help.
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Again the equipment to do this is either unavailable or illegal in many places. You would need something with a DVI or HDMI input for your computer.
Now most DVR's run on some sort of *nix platform and have ethernet ports so if you want to void your warranty and risk breaking your equipment you might be able to boot it with networking and copy it that way. And of course again it's probably illegal to do it.