HDTV PC Capture Solutions?

Akai asks: "With HDTV DVR's costing upwards of a thousand US dollars or more, I was looking for a HiDef capture card that would work with Linux and an external HD receiver. The pchdtv card looks nice but it's RF input only for HiDef content, and only supports OTA at this point. Both DirecTV and DishNetwork HD STBs can be hacked with FireWire ports, but it's not cheap, so I was trying to find a capture card with either DVI or Component inputs, or a converter to take either of those to FireWire. The old Dish Network model 5000 receivers had an option to output HDTV RF but they are no longer compatible with Dish's current HDTV broadcasts. Google has not been helpful in this regard, and all I've found is professional (>$2000US) format conversion gear. Is there a PC (hopefully Linux) based video capture solution that can capture the output of a cable of DBS STB (RGBA, DVI, or Component out) without a significant loss of image fidelity?"

Comments

how about

[Anonymous Coward]

This or this???

Re:how about

[Mattcelt]

Right. So the original question poster is looking for a linux-friendly HDTV PCI card with digital I/O and QAM decoding support, have I got that right?

There seems to be some good information here. Ignore the "DVIco FusionHDTV DVB-T Digital TV Tuner Card"; it's composite and SVHS input only. The MyHD MPD-120 Tuner (actual MPD-120 mfg. product link here) has a DVI-in daughterboard, which is nice (though it doesn't have QAM decoding, apparently). It also outputs IEEE1394, but under Windows XP only, which sucks. But it does have component video analog output. So that might be useful, but doesn't seem to be the holy grail.

Chances are...

[VeneficusAcerbus]

... you won't be able to find anything like that anytime soon. Although VIA recently released an HDTV chip, but I'm not sure whether that will help or not.

Cable

[clinko]

"With HDTV DVR's costing upwards of a thousand US dollars or more"

It's $3 more a month than the normal DVR Time Warner offers.

I know this might not be an option for you, but others might want to know that HD DVRs might just be $36/yr. away from them.

Re:Cable

[calibanDNS]

In my area (central NC), Time Warner rents out the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR which is pretty crappy compared to a MythTV box, Tivo, and ReplayTV. The SA8300HD box is buggy and routinely misses programs that I've scheduled for recording for no apparent reason other than it just isn't in the mood at the time.

Also, when you're renting a box from your cable provider, they expect it to be returned in the same condition when you cancel your service. Hardly a hacker-friendly policy.

If you want some basic (but flaky) recording capabilities without the hassle of a VCR, get the Time Warner-offered box. If you want reliability, flexibility, and the ability to hack it, I think you're SOL for now.

Bandwidth.

[Joseph Vigneau]

One of the reasons this is so expensive is that the amount of data coming in from an uncompressed source (like component cables or DVI) is immense. This is why the pcHDTV card only accepts compressed broadcast streams: it captures the already encoded video stream. A device that can capture raw video would have to compress it before it can be feed to the computer.

Re:Bandwidth.

[Ogerman]

One of the reasons this is so expensive is that the amount of data coming in from an uncompressed source (like component cables or DVI) is immense.

The video signal commonly referred to as "component" and having the 3 RCA connectors (Y,Pb,Pr) is analog, not digital. I can't tell you how many people are confused about this. (: Other than bandwidth and timing formats, it's not that much different than S-video, which is also a type of component signal and is sometimes written as (Y,Pb+Pr) or (Y,C).

So if you're trying to bring an HDTV analog component source into your computer, you need some pretty darn fast and accurate analog to digital convertors before you even worry about re-compressing the digital signal. Not cheap.. yet! (Remember how much NTSC composite capture devices used to cost?)

Was on /. before

[rustamb]

http://pchdtv.com/hd_3000.html

Re:Was on /. before

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read the guy's question? He's not looking for a card to capture OTA ATSC, he wants something that will capture from his DBS STB via DVI, RGB, etc.

Samsung SIR-T165

[Reeses]

The samsung SIR-T165 can capture OTA HD broadcasts. It has firewire out ports.

I've hooked it up to my Mac, with a piece of sofware called VirtualDVHS and captured HD streams off of the device.

HD Streams gobble disk space like you wouldn't believe.

I think they may even have made a model that does satellite feeds also, with firewire ports, but you'd have to check around, and maybe hit ebay.

You should

[Anonymous Coward]

Your best bet right now (and probably forever) is to get one of the HD digital tuners that's available ASAP, because after the INDUCE act kicks in, they'll all have that nasty broadcast flag thingie. And then (not sure of the costs once HD proliferates) just get a regular ol' input card with component or VGA or DVI inputs or whatever. Basically, you'll have two separate cards if you want a full-featured HDTV capable PVR box.

ATI has a HDTV card !!!

[newnovice]

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?p roduct_code=314569&pfp=cat3 It is 150$ after rebate, i do not know if you are going to build a PVR, if yes. this is what you want to be able to record HDTV on your PC and watch it back on the TV using Win MCE 2005, MythTV, FreeVo, and some more PVR software !!!!

Not anytime soon

[crow]

The problem with recording HDTV is that you have to generate a MPEG2 stream from the component or DVI signal. Real-time encoding of HDTV signals takes vastly more work than encoding NTSC signals, so you can't buy a consumer-priced card that does it.

Fortunately, HDTV is broadcast as a MPEG2 stream to begin with (with additional error correction). So you can get a tuner card that simply saves the raw data that is broadcast. This works great for over-the-air signals. For satellite and cable, you need to get to the signal after it's been unencrypted, but before it's been decoded. Your two options are to use a decoder with firewire output, or to put your recorder into the decoder box (like TiVo does).

Re:Not anytime soon

[crow]

Yeah, the whole thing is rather confusing until you understand exactly what all is going on.

Regular analog TV, whether broadcast NTSC/PAL/SECAM, older analog cable (for me, channels under 100), or regular VHS tapes, is a signal that is essentially fed directly to the electron beam in your traditional TV. There is some funky electronics magic going on, but essentially, each dot in each frame corresponds to a specific fraction of a millisecond of the signal. (Some analog cable channels are scrambled, and decoder boxes will correct the mangled signal. There was a project, fscktv, to do this with a video card, but I never saw it actually work.)

To record an analog signal, you have two important steps. First, you need a TV tuner card that digitizes the signal. Second, you need to compress the video into something managable, such as MPEG-2. The PVR-250 cards are popular because they do both steps.

Digital broadcast TV is simpler. You just need to extract the digital information from the broadcast, much like a modem gets the digital information encoded on a voice phone line. With digital broadcasts, the process of compressing the data is done by the broadcaster, so you don't need any extra work to get a MPEG-2 stream.

Satellite and digital cable, whether HDTV or regular resolution, are sent as MPEG-2 streams, but the problem is that they are selling access to the channels, so they usually encrypt the streams. They assume you'll use their decoder boxes that do two things. First, they unencrypt the stream. Then they decode the stream. By "decode," I mean play the MPEG stream. That means you're back to an analog signal, whether you're using composite, s-video, or component outputs. Even if you use DVI or HDMI, which are digital, it's a decoded signal, not the MPEG stream.

So to record digital cable or satellite broadcasts, you have to either re-encode the signal, which simply isn't feasible right now for HDTV, or you have to somehow get the signal before it's decoded. If your PVR is integrated with your cable or satellite box, it can get the original MPEG stream (which is how DirectTiVo works). The only other option is that some digital cable and satellite boxes have a firewire port that you can connect to your computer, where they send the MPEG stream. MythTV doesn't support that yet, but someone was working on it a while ago.

In theory, you can get a smart card from your cable company that plugs into devices with digital tuners, which allows them to unencrypt channels that you are subscribed to. Some of the more expensive HDTVs accept them so you can use them without a cable box. There's nothing really stopping someone from building a card for your computer that uses the same card.

My research

[isa-kuruption]

Several months ago i spent time researching an HTPC (Home Theater PC) with the intent to have it do everything from HDTV, XM Radio, DVD Player, Music box w/ iTunes, etc.

From my research, specifically, into HDTV, I discovered that all the cards only will decipher over the air (yes, with an antenna) HDTV signals and not HDTV from a cable or satelite provider. Highly disappointing. While I do live in the NYC area, I could have gotten an antenna and received NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox all in HDTV over the air, I could not receive HBO, Discovery HD, etc. Because of this current limitation, I temporarily gave up on the HTPC and am waiting for more reasonable resources.

Oh, and something else I found, the FCC has declared that all cable providers MUST have firewire interfaces on their decoder devices as of May 2004. This would mean you could connect a PC to your cable HD converter in order to record programs, but it does not mean that once the programs are on your PC, you will be able to access them from anything other than your cable box.

Re:My research

[isa-kuruption]

Some more information....

This website, Digital Connection, provides much, much information regarding HDTC and HTPC. In fact, I see they have a which *may* work to decode HDTV signals from cable providers, however at the bottom of the page it says, "QAM decoding is under development due to the variations in Cable service providers. QAM256 generally has been reported to work, although QAM64 still poses problems with the decoding software. FusionHDTV QAM decoding is limited to only the non-encrypted channels available (generally the OTA local stations)."

Personally, I like the MyHD MDP-120 since all the decoding is done in hardware, but it only does ATSC (over the air HDTV broadcasts).

sorry... here's what i got

[enrico_suave]

Unless i've totally missed it... there's not a good way to get HDTV content via cable onto the PC.

There's the firewire pull content/control from the hdtv box. The mac folks seem to have the easiest time with this...

There's OTA terrestial DTV cards (like the linux hdtv card mentioned, and ati's HDTV wonder)

There's a QAM capable card out there Fusion III QAM HDTV Tuner Card(no idea on linux drivers), but that's only useful if your cable company does NOT encrypt their QAM signal...

Ideally, IMHO... we need some sort of PCI CableCard docking device, but I doubt our content controlling masters will allow that. Although, the more CableCard ready HDTV sets I see, gives me hope that someone will take the chocolate and peanutbutter and come up with PC HDTV PVR reeces peanut butter cups...

a PCI card that was CableCard ready would allow legitimate digital cable subscribers to watch digital cable on their PC/etc.

You can get HD PBS for free with FTA DBA satellite cards.

e.

Re:sorry... here's what i got

[Anonymous Coward]

After spending lots of time reading the CableCard specifications in particular the sections on encryption it seems unlikely that the CableCard group would license the decryption engine to a company wanting to make a PC based cable card system. They make it clear that the encryption part needs a license to implement. So anyone wanting to make a card based around the open specifications will probably get socked with some suit based on the patents this group has attained for the cablecard.

To let you know the cablecard is similar to pcmcia type interface with embedded encryption, and there are two types of keys exchanged. One is a static key and the other is a dynamic key. The cable card though will only turn on encryption if the incoming signal is 'broadcast protected'. All other signals should proceed through without requiring any key passing.

Now for consumers, it would be pretty hard to do the encryption exchange yourself. Though anything is possible with enough time. Hopefully broadcasters won't enable broadcast protection on all the content. Maybe they'll just do it for Pay-per-View

Uh, no. Sorry.

[fellini8.5]

This comes up on AVSForum all the time. In a nutshell: the HDTV you get over-the-air, that gets beamed to your satellite box, or zapped to your cable box is a compressed transport stream that fits in the same bandwidth as an old-fashioned analog signal.

The satellite/cable box then decodes that stream to produce the full HDTV-resolution signal, that gets delivered to your monitor (either via analog component or digital DVI/HDMI).

That full-resolution bandwidth required to re-digitize/re-encode the full bandwidth signal to a recordable transport stream is currently beyond the capabilities of any pc-based solution under that $2000 price-point.

There are only two close-to-usable solutions so far: IEEE-1394 keeps it's delivery from device to device as the compressed transport stream. The problem being that most transport streams from these devices are encrypted. Some aren't. You might get lucky. The other is to find a tuner tuner card that can decode the QAM signals that cable companies use. The problem being again, that most cable companies encrypt those signals (at least those you can't get over-the-air anyhow).

Check back in about five years. :)

RF...?

[The-Bus]

A HD capture card where the signal is then transmitted through RF?

At first sounds like someone recording a symphony for an eventual release on SACD but then using their mom's answering machine to record the concert.

I looked into it a bit more. The RF is actually a coaxial input. Which means it's the same exact input you'd get from, say, Comcast or your local cable provider. I don't have time to do a lot of research but isn't this what you're looking for? Is there something I'm missing?

Re:RF...?

[Fnkmaster]

Is there something I'm missing?

Yes, QAM decoding capabilities. The PCHDTV only decodes raw OTA HD broadcasts, and that's what it assumes is on the coax input. Unfortunately, the raw cable signals sent by cable companies over their coax use QAM encoding, as well as encryption for premium channels. And none of the digital HD cable boxes they give you output an OTA-style signal, they output DVI, component or something similar (which is, I guess, uncompressed HD video).

So in short, your method doesn't work and cannot work.

FusionHDTV?

[richardtallent]

Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but I have a FusionHDTV3 HD tuner card and I'm pretty happy with it.

Pros:
- Supports OTA ATSC, as well as some support for QAM64 and QAM256 (unencrypted only).
- No broadcast flag hoops to jump through.
- Recorded DTV programming is saved directly to disk as non-DRM'd MPEG-2 TP files (with full AC3 audio) that are easily converted to MPEG-2 PS format.
- Recorded NTSC (analog) programming is saved in MPEG-2 PS that could be transcoded easily for DVD.
- Image captures are saved as TIFF at full
resolution.
- Cheap: ~$150

Caveats:
- Output is only via your video card (overlay). Works with DVI, but tweaking video card resolutions to those that "HDTV-ready" televisions like might be a pain.
- Only RF inputs, no component/DVI
- No Linux support that I'm aware of
- Works best with ATi RADEON-based video cards (can offload more CPU work)
- The recording scheduler is buggy--like first year compsci student buggy.
- Slow tech support response
- Haven't tried using it with any of the popular HTPC apps yet
- Needs a decently-strong HD signal (18db+), a Radio Shack amplifier

RE: In the same boat

[Fireye]

DVI is not encrypted. There IS an extension to dvi, known as HDCP, which stands for High Deffinition Copy Protocol. I don't think there are any ways to decrypt HDCP, at least, that I know of.

Just FYI, you can find a listing of HDTV broadcast stations in your area with: CheckHD

Re:Your Only Hope...

[enrico_suave]

the HDTV wonder isn't any better than the current linux solution that's already out there... both do (currently) OTA DTV only...

Throw in the fact the ATI HDTV doesn't play well with any other cards except ATI, well they can keep it windoze only. =)

Cable HDTV - QAM Encoded

[ludey]

Try this card from DVICO. As long as your provider doesn't encrypt the QAM signal (probably does for HBO, Showtime, & the like) you can capture HDTV in full quality.

Scan converters

[base_chakra]

ATI however, does make a HDTV card, but the problem with it is it only does broadcast free to air type HD, which is basically non existant in my area.

Since free-to-air decoders are all we're likely to see for awhile, it's probably best to offload decryption to your set-top receiver.

Therefore, even though pcHDTV has no more stock of the HD-3000, and none are available on eBay, it's worth exploring. HDTV input support may be limited to RF, but one can circumvent this problem with nominal quality loss by using a (semi-)pro HDTV scan converter. Maybe this one is affordable? This one is probably much cheaper, but I don't know anything about it.

Using a scan converter is a sub-optimal solution, but other than being useful gear in general, but it does allow you to get over both the adapter and decoder stumbling blocks.

Quasi-related side note: as a PC-to-TV solution, scan converters have substantially better output than TV-out cards.

Re:there is an OS X solution.....

[tetsuotheironman]

here is article with link to software from OSXhints..
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040 426151111599&query=HDTV
It'll work if you have a HDTV box with firewire outputs given MPEG TS stream is unencrypted.. I was able to get it to work with my tuner from Time Warner.

Re:there is an OS X solution.....

[tetsuotheironman]

BTW.. did I mention you'll need some disk space :) ?

Get a cable box with 1394 enabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply get a cable box with 1394 enabled, then download either of these depending on your needs.

DVHSTOOL
http://kgbird.com/DVHSTool/

Or if you have a 1394 enabled TV /w HAVI support this software if great (and is only $99)

Vividlogic's Firebus
http://www.vividlogic.com/products/dtvr_o verview.h tml

I have a TV with HAVI/1394 on it so I just used the vivid logic software. However I found it just as easy to get a Scientific Atlana 8000HD box from my cable provider (time warber). It cost me an extra $2.50 a month from the package I already had. And the unit came with a 160GB drive.

Re:pchdtv

[tommck]

Don't strain yourself by reading the second sentence of the posting or anything... :)

the pchdtv card only supports RF input (which only works with over-the-air broadcasts). The guy wants to be able to record Dish & Cable HDTV, which you can't do with the PCHDTV card.

T

Re:Comcast DVR

[mozumder]

Recording from Motorola 6208 through firewire works great on MacOSX as well. I would say its the easiest way to record high-def so far, and you get the ability to record premium channels - Matrix trilogy was on in High Def this past weekend on Cinemax. You can use iCal to automatically schedule recordings, and set the firewire interface to capture.

Now, if only I had a MPEG transport stream player that doesn't disrupt audio that VLC player does on my PowerMac..

Re:Acronyms!

[Reeses]

DBS = Digital Broadcast System

Most satellite and digital cable systems are considered this.

DVI = Digital Video Interface

It's that new connector with lots of really small pins that connects monitors and HDTVs together digitally.

DVR = Digital Video Recorder

TiVo, ReplayTV, New cable/satellite boxes with built in hard drives, etc.

HD = High Definition

The new TV standard. 4x the resolution. Roughly 16x the color depth.

HDTV = High Definition Television

See above.

OTA = Over The Air

Sucked in with an antenna.

PC = Personal Computer

Linux/Mac/Windows using computer.

PVR = Personal Video Recorder

MythTV, ReplayTV, TiVo.

RGBA = Red-Green-Blue Analog

Old school video hookups. Also known as S-Video, RF, Component.

STB = Set Top Box

That little box that lives on top of your TV.

US = United States

The last remaining Superpower as of this writing.

SA8300HD box not buggy

[DigiShaman]

The SA8300HD box is buggy and routinely misses programs that I've scheduled for recording for no apparent reason other than it just isn't in the mood at the time.

As someone who works at Time Warner Cable, I can tell you exactly what the problem is. You have a poor signal going to the box. If your Tuner level is -10 dbmv or below (along with poor FDC and RCD signals), the box will not be able to lock onto that channel properly. Sometimes, it may have a good enough signal at the start of the recording but then drop off. This can be the primary reason for the effect of seeing the DVR record, but will not finilize the recording to the list when finished. If the tuner signal is really bad though, it wont even attempt to record even when scheduled to do so.

Re:SA8300HD box not buggy

[DigiShaman]

Actually, that's a good suggestion. But the only way for the DVR to warn the customer of any signal issue to the box is if it's programmed to do so. I can only hope Scientific Atlanta implements this as a feature in the next firmware upgrade. Untill then, not much can be done about unless the customer calls in to report the problem and have the issue address by a cable technician.

It's basic rule of thumb with any service based industry. We will not confont you with an issue you *might* be having. If you do not call in to report an issue, we will just assume one of two things.

A. Your not having an on-going issue and thus not notice any problems.

B. You just don't care that your having problems and will continue to pay for the service anyways.

But if your a paying customer of TWC. You have the RIGHT to call in and have any cable related issue address by phone and to be provided with options. But you still have to make the initiative.

Nothing for under $25,000

[benwaggoner]

Yeah, you certainly can't build a good component analog HD capture system for a reasonable price. While there are lots of analog SD capture cards, since analog was around in SD for so long, professional HD has pretty much always been digital.

I have a game company client who needed to be able to do real-time screen caps of game play at HD. What we did was have them do a VGA output at 1280x720 60 fps. We then ran that through a converter box to take the RGB VGA to a component digital HD-SDI signal. That went into a BOXX HD capture system, using the Cineform Prospect HD real-time wavelet codec.

Works like a champ, but expect to pay at least $25K for that setup today. Probably half that next year. But there simply isn't a lot of demand for component analog HD capture, which means that's going to be a specialist, and expensive, part for a while. Moore's law doesn't quite apply to analog to digital conversion circuitry.

Pretty cool to watch recorded game play at 2.5x the detail of a high-end DVD.

Re:$2000 cable box?

[Wesley Felter]

If the "satellite/cable box" can decode it, and doesn't cost $2000 why isnt there a card that can do the same thing?

DRM.