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Archiving Content from a PVR?

Posted by Cliff on from the PVRs-need-built-in-ethernet-jacks dept.

ayden asks: "Now that the universe has conspired to keep me unemployed for the foreseeable future, I'm taking the time to fill in the gaps in my Babylon 5 collection thanks to the SCI-FI channel. I'm frustrated the linear nature video tape and the problems associated with recording directly from broadcast to tape. It occurs to me that there has to be a better way. I've thought about using my ATI All In Wonder Radeon to record the program directly to my hard drive and editing the resulting file to remove commercials. Should I then record the file to video tape? Or would it be better to make a Video CD I could play back on my DVD player? Are there other options should I consider? How are people archiving shows from their Personal Video Recorders? What techniques are people using to accomplish these tasks?"

3 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. babylon 5 by Satai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm going to take the conventional approach and buy the DVDs this fall, as they will also include TONS of interviews and JMS commentary on both Signs and Portents and Chrysalis. The following seasons should, well, follow shortly after the first...

    1. Re:babylon 5 by ayden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Although I may do this some day, the cost of over 100 hours of DVD video makes the cost prohibitive while unemployed.

      Thanks for the info, though.

      --
      "I'm The Bounty Bear. I will find him anywhere. I'm searching."
  2. Two solutions, I've tried both.. by delus10n0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First and easiest solution is to just make a "media box" with an All-In-Wonder in it to record your shows to MPEG2. Then I used TMPEGEnc and other tools to make them into SVCD (or sometimes DiVX.) An hour long episode could be edited down to 40 minutes or so (with all the commercials out), and it would be pretty decent quality on a single 700meg CD as SVCD.

    The second and more difficult solution is to get a Tivo, install TurboNet on it (a 100mbps NIC), and try to extract the streams off of the Tivo. I have had a lot of problems with this method, as most "long" shows (over an hour) won't extract properly, or give me other errors. The nice thing about this method though is that it's interlaced, and already in the proper resolution for TV. Plus, the hardware MPEG2 encoder of the TiVO is by far a million times better than the software one of the All-In-Wonder.

    For more information on TiVO hacks, visit http://www.9thtee.com/ -- and for more information on video stuff in general I'd try http://www.vcdhelp.com and http://www.doom9.org

    --
    Not All Who Wander Are Lost