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View Full Version : Capturing video from Dreambox

wacco
1st May 2006, 15:17
Hello.

I am going to buy a DREAMBOX 500S as well as a TV-Tuner PCI card to put in my PC. I have no poblems to get the Dreambox connected to the reciever outside of my house.

However, I do not know what TV-Tuner I need to buy (please give link to one :o ) in order to connect the Dreambox to it, and then watch and capture video from it onto my PC.

And what cables do I use? S-video? Composite?

So basically, what TV-tuner do I need in order to watch and record from my Dreambox onto my PC? If it is possible to capture in divx or xvid that would be awesome, but I guess it is only MPEG that is possible.
communist
1st May 2006, 15:26
If you connect your dreambox with your PC over LAN you record the mpeg stream directly to your harddrive with ngrab. There is no loss of quality and no need to set up a capture card etc. - you can convert the recorded files (.ts - transport streams) then to a format that suits you.
wacco
1st May 2006, 15:31
If you connect your dreambox with your PC over LAN you record the mpeg stream directly to your harddrive with ngrab. There is no loss of quality and no need to set up a capture card etc. - you can convert the recorded files (.ts - transport streams) then to a format that suits you.

Can I convert using plain usual Virtualdub? What software do I record with, and what software do I watch the stream with? I can watch and record at the same time, right?

Maybe there is a tutorial on how to record somewhere? I havent seen any Dreambox tutorials on any subject anywhere :S .
communist
1st May 2006, 17:13
You can watch with VLC (via the web interface) - I havent tried recording (with ngrab) / watching (with VLC) at the same time since the box here isnt a 500 its a DM7020 where I put in my old hdd, so I just record to the hdd in the receiver.. I've only tested it with ngrab a few times and that was ages ago when I didn have a hdd in it.

As for converting yes provided you use DGIndex/DGDecode and Avisynth to frameserve you can do the converting in VirtualDub. There is a lengthy Dreambox guide here - though I cant tell how accurate it is in regard to the DM 500.
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/DigiTV/dbox-howto.htm

Also you can create a share on your PC and mount it on the box (again something I never did) and save recordings there.
wacco
1st May 2006, 17:43
Ok, thank you very much :) .
Last question - Can I record using ngrab on the PC at the same time as I watch on my TV?
communist
1st May 2006, 18:21
Yes that is perfectly possible, all the box does is decode it for you on the TV and send a copy of the stream to PC which stores it on the disk.
wacco
1st May 2006, 18:44
Yes that is perfectly possible, all the box does is decode it for you on the TV and send a copy of the stream to PC which stores it on the disk.


Thanks for helping me out today :) . I will definetly get a Dreambox next week :)