EggXpert

My question is..... which option is better IF the only HD recording you do is from a cable STB? 

I have yet to buy a Hauppauge HD-PVR primarily because I have no interest in recording from any component sources other than a STB and my cable provider did not used to give us premium HD channels that I was interested in saving. But now that my cable provider has begun to broadcast some premium channels I like in HD, I am considering to get either a Haupauge HD-PVR or cable card tuner on my Win 7 PC.

I have been interested in HD-PVR all along but with Win 7 RC Media Center having the ability to work with a cable card, would it be a better option?

The resulting recording will be in .WTV which is kinda pain, but Win 7 allows a right-click and convert to DVR-MS for mpeg2 stream WTV recordings (which is the case in the US). I'm not sure if that is applicable to encrypted TV channels though as I 'suspect' that one of the purposes of developing the WTV format was perhaps to protect broadcaster's copyright?  If that is not the case though,,, companies that make popular video editting soft (e.g. Adobe, Pinnacle) may start making softs that take WTV for input in the future.   

 One downside of this is that for those who already own regular QAM tuners at this point, this method requires another tuner that takes cable cards. But you could argue that getting a tuner like that eliminates the need for a cable box and separate DVR. And in my particular case, I have to buy either HD-PVR or a cable card tuner anyway...

What are thoughts on a cable card tuner vs Hauppauge HD-PVR specifically for premium HD channel recording, editting and storing away permanently?

 

I am curious as to what tv tuner card that is using the cable card?  I have not seen any that can be bought as stand alone cards only ill incorporated ones in high end oem systems.  And even with one I am not sure what they allow to be recorded. 

As far as file format I have no idea what they record to.  I know through the hd pvr it records to either .tp (when using BeyondTV) or .ts or .m2ts through included app.  Then in regards to editting I have a program that does ts or m2ts files (though tp is easy as you just rename it to ts) using Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 Ultra which give a bunch of output formats. 

sjr:

I am curious as to what tv tuner card that is using the cable card?  I have not seen any that can be bought as stand alone cards only ill incorporated ones in high end oem systems.  And even with one I am not sure what they allow to be recorded. 

As far as file format I have no idea what they record to.  I know through the hd pvr it records to either .tp (when using BeyondTV) or .ts or .m2ts through included app.  Then in regards to editting I have a program that does ts or m2ts files (though tp is easy as you just rename it to ts) using Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 Ultra which give a bunch of output formats. 

Well, alright, I haven't looked for one, but apparently, there are some sold on places like eBay and Cannon. Also, those cards used to be exclusively for oem systems but someone has found a way around. Check this out.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/05/12/how-to-install-a-cablecard-tuner-in-your-diy-media-center/

This is kinda true and I found it funny? in a way, lol.

 Not for everyone
We also want to say that this might not be for everyone. For starters, it's totally possible for Microsoft to release an update that would make this stop working, but most importantly, you won't be able to get any support if you run into problems.

 

I have a qustion. With HD-PVR's included app. can you choose ts or m2ts? or it's not a choice?

 

 

It is a drop down choice.  I think it defaults to .m2ts but I usually change other settings as well (put everything at max - I now have 3 1.5tb drives, though not all in that pc, so space is no issue for me) so I am already remembering I need to change settings.  Though either way with my editing app either one is fine to work with. 

I, for the most part, only use the included app when recording things other than scheduled shows as I can record those via BeyondTV as well as not have to be there.  Using the included app is more manual but really easier when doing manual on the fly things, like off of OnDemand, or through the Xbox360, or hd dvd player (or any other device such as a PS3 which I will get if the price ever drops).

I recently did a bit of a test and recorded a movie played on the hd dvd player and then had someone say which version looked better.  The original hd dvd playback or the mpeg file I got after recording in .ts the editing to mpeg.  They could not tell the difference between the 2, I did it blind test style by just having them go out of the room as I switched device playbacks at the same point in the movie.  I did the test with someone else as I couldn't really see any difference and wanted to make sure I was not being biased on quality.  I would test on a blu-ray as well but since at present I only have a blu-ray player on the pc itself I am not exactly sure how to record it in a similar manner since I don't have component out of the pc (just hdmi out) hence the want of a PS3.

sjr:

It is a drop down choice.  I think it defaults to .m2ts but I usually change other settings as well (put everything at max - I now have 3 1.5tb drives, though not all in that pc, so space is no issue for me) so I am already remembering I need to change settings.  Though either way with my editing app either one is fine to work with. 

I, for the most part, only use the included app when recording things other than scheduled shows as I can record those via BeyondTV as well as not have to be there.  Using the included app is more manual but really easier when doing manual on the fly things, like off of OnDemand, or through the Xbox360, or hd dvd player (or any other device such as a PS3 which I will get if the price ever drops).

I recently did a bit of a test and recorded a movie played on the hd dvd player and then had someone say which version looked better.  The original hd dvd playback or the mpeg file I got after recording in .ts the editing to mpeg.  They could not tell the difference between the 2, I did it blind test style by just having them go out of the room as I switched device playbacks at the same point in the movie.  I did the test with someone else as I couldn't really see any difference and wanted to make sure I was not being biased on quality.  I would test on a blu-ray as well but since at present I only have a blu-ray player on the pc itself I am not exactly sure how to record it in a similar manner since I don't have component out of the pc (just hdmi out) hence the want of a PS3.

 

I can't believe I didn't thank you for this!!! THANK YOU! LOL at your 'scientific' experiment!

Hey people say like you need a TV tuner to use the HD-PVR. Why is that? I mean if you have a STB plus DVR, can't you just 'Video-Capture" DVR's output after the DVR finishes recording the show??  without a tuner on your computer??  or it only records stuff LIVE?

I mean this is a USB device correct? I don't know how you can possibly make this device work with a TV tuner which can be yet another USB device, lol.

You do not have to have a tuner to use it.  Basically like you asked it is the dvr/stb you already have that is doing the "tuning" in that case. 

It itself does not record anything it is whatever app you use, be it the included one or another 3rd party app (just know Media Center will not work with it due to that programs limitations) like BeyondTV or SageTV.  

I guess you could say it only records live, meaning whatever you are outputting into the HD PVR is the only thing you can record with it.  So if you are using your cable box out to it you record what it is playing.  Say you have a cable box that is a dvr with 2 tuners.  You can record 2 shows at once on the cable box/dvr (or record one and just view another channel).  The HD PVR cannot record both shows only the one thing that is showing.  You can record from the dvr playback however, just be aware any onscreen message the dvr shows like "Recording started" or "Recording completed" will display as well so it is best not to use it while doing other stuff on the stb/dvr.  But this also does mean you can record On Demand shows as well.  And these are part of the reasons I was looking for a app that could edit .ts or .tp files so things at the begining and end and things like commericals in the middle could be removed.  

1 more good thing.  If your cable box/dvr has both Component and HDMI out you can use both at the same time.  Meaning you can output the component to the HD PVR and also output the HDMI to your tv or receiver at the same time. 

sjr:

You do not have to have a tuner to use it.  Basically like you asked it is the dvr/stb you already have that is doing the "tuning" in that case. 

It itself does not record anything it is whatever app you use, be it the included one or another 3rd party app (just know Media Center will not work with it due to that programs limitations) like BeyondTV or SageTV.  

I guess you could say it only records live, meaning whatever you are outputting into the HD PVR is the only thing you can record with it.  So if you are using your cable box out to it you record what it is playing.  Say you have a cable box that is a dvr with 2 tuners.  You can record 2 shows at once on the cable box/dvr (or record one and just view another channel).  The HD PVR cannot record both shows only the one thing that is showing.  You can record from the dvr playback however, just be aware any onscreen message the dvr shows like "Recording started" or "Recording completed" will display as well so it is best not to use it while doing other stuff on the stb/dvr.  But this also does mean you can record On Demand shows as well.  And these are part of the reasons I was looking for a app that could edit .ts or .tp files so things at the begining and end and things like commericals in the middle could be removed.  

1 more good thing.  If your cable box/dvr has both Component and HDMI out you can use both at the same time.  Meaning you can output the component to the HD PVR and also output the HDMI to your tv or receiver at the same time. 

 Great! That was my understanding. It's basically the same ... traditional "video capture" device that records whatever that it's recieving at that moment, with the ability to capture in HD resolutions. Thanks for all the explanation! 

Did you find a soft to edit .ts/.tp files? What are you using? Just curious...  I normally use like... Pinnalce Studio and TMPGEnc Express 4.0 are my favorite video editting soft that take .ts. But if you have Media Player Classic (very light and free media player), you can open the .ts file, go to File-> Save As and resave the same file with .mpg manually added to the end of the file. I think you may be able to just edit the exntesion to .mpg without opening in the media player as well. Also, HDTV to MPEG or HDTV to MPG soft (free at www.download.com) does the conversion from .ts to .mpg. Then you can edit with pretty much any software (including Windows Movie Maker, LOL).  

Using the highest settings for the HD PVR, how much space on the HDD does 4 hours of HD content from ESPNHD use?

I can't say for sure on 4hrs of ESPNHD but for things I have recorded it seems to be between 10-11min per gb.  Which would be about 22-24gb for 4hrs.  That is using the app that comes with it and recording as .ts format.

When going through BeyondTV and recording to .tp format I get a much lower file size (and if you want it in .ts all you need to do is rename it from .tp to .ts and it works fine, as this is what I do to edit).  Around 7.5gb for 2 hours, which would be 15gb for 4hours.

Yeah the product spec of HD-PVR says, "Record at datarates from 1Mbs to 13.5Mbs, constant and Variable Bit Rate"

So, 13.5M bits per second at highest. 13.5M bits per second / 8 = 1.7 MB/sec.  1.7MB/sec x 60 sec/min = 102MB/min at highest.

 But H264 compression produces great picture quality that I bet it's superb. :D

I opened my PVR last night and connected it to my cable box.  I was too lazy to move a desktop to the TV so I just tried a laptop (core2 with 2gb RAM).  I couldn't get a signal at all with the PVR - I hope this was simply a problem with hardware limitations of the laptop (I don't even know what kind of graphics the laptop has).  I will try moving a capable desktop (Q9300, 4gig RAM, ATI 4850) to get the capture to work tonight.  Anyone have any problems with hardware limited machines hooked up to a PVR?

Did you install the software that came with the HD-PVR?  If not you have to be using a tv app like BeyondTV or MythTV.

sjr:

Did you install the software that came with the HD-PVR?  If not you have to be using a tv app like BeyondTV or MythTV.

 I am not using any of the 3rd party apps like Myth.  I just opened the PVR last night and tried to use the included software with a laptop as a test recording but no dice.  I hope the problem was the limitations of the laptop.

The preview screen on the right side of the screen remained blank last night.  When I tried to capture something, after I hit the stop button - the message said that the recording failed.  Also, in the options the adjustment for "Bit Rate" was locked at zero and I could not change it.

 

Has anyone had similar issues?  I doubt that the laptop I was using has the required 256mb of graphics card memory.  Are these issues consistent with this type of hardware problem?

Someone else just had a good idea.  I may have been having a problem capturing the component video from my cable box because I had the HDMI still connected to the TV.  I guess some cable boxes do not allow output through both at the same time.  I'm using the POS box from my cable company, Scientific American (I think).  Is this true?

The HDMI cable had to be disconnected to get the component video connection to work with the PVR (stupid cable box).  However, everything captured through the component video has a red tint.  The picture looks much better through the s-video connection despite the drop in video quality compared to component (I'm not sure what the actual difference is).  As an added bonus, I can get the HDMI connection to the TV to work correctly while recording to the PVR through the s-video.

Red tint on a component video connection... I assume this is an issue with my cable box... correct?  or possibly the brand new PVR?  Anybody?

 

 

 

I guess I would say make sure you have the latest drivers http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_hdpvr.html  though I didn't have any of the issues you are having since last year, well before the last drivers were out.

I have always run both a hdmi cable out to my receiver and the component cables to the hd pvr from my cable box and both work fine.  

Which pc are you running with the hd pvr now?  The Q9300 with the HD4850?  If so that is plenty of pc and video to run the hd pvr with preview running.  The only thing I can see that could be an issue is the Windows 7 part, I don't think it is supported, only XP and Vista are.  I would assume by the next time they have a updated driver 7 would be but as of right now that may be the issue you are having.

I now have HD-PVR connected to a Win 7 computer with the latest driver. I do NOT see the red tint. My PC has Q6600 and HD4850, and my cable box is Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC from Time Warner. Whether you can run parallel with an HDMI to my knowledge depends on your cable box.

The best way to test whether the issue is related to the cable box is perhpas try hooking up the component to your HDTV if you have always used HDMI for your TV. Or just adjusting the color on your application maybe an option.

Now that I have recorded a few things with the PVR, I need to do some editing.  In Win7, I have tried using the windows movie maker but after cutting out some fluff, I'm having problems where the audio does not sync with the video.  It seems to be the same with .ts files and .m2ts files.  Which of those do most people use?

 

Also, what is a good tool to crop the video?  I have the gray boxes on the top and bottom of the video.

I have been using Cyberlinks PowerDirector Ultra.  I had been waiting on Video Redo as I really like their editing on regular .mpg files but they were taking too long to finish their h.264 video editing capability.    

PowerDirector supports all kinds of input formats and output formats.

I normally use TMPGEnc 4.0 Express.