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kublikhan
26th February 2008, 02:03
I need some advice on what direction to go for a DVR.
requirements:
1. Ability to transfer files to and from DVR to computer without pulling HD out. I don't want to do a capture, just a simple file transfer.
2. Recorded TV looks as good as original.
3. No telephone line required.
4. Only need SD at this point, HD is not required.
5. I don't care how much it costs I just want it to work.

preferences:
I. Either combined cable/DVR unit or can change channels on cable/sat box.
II. Prefer no extra monthly fee for DVR unit, would rather purchase it outright.

I currently have DISH Network, but I am willing to change to DirecTV or cable if it makes things easier. I almost went with the Dish ViP722 Or ViP622 DVR, but the fact that you have to plug a phone line into it and you can't transfer programs out of it without taking it apart turned me off.
I put together a Myth box instead. The problem is the picture quality when watching TV through the Myth box is worse than when watching through the sat box. I was told to expect this problem because extra conversion steps are being done? I don't want to have to live with sub par picture quality. Does my Myth box just need tweaking or should I invest in something like tivo or a settop with a built in DVR? I read that the Archos 605 now supports Dish DVR's. Could I use that as an intermediary to transfer files to/from the Dish DVR to/from my computer?

hkazemi
26th February 2008, 04:04
1. There are several tools that can work with Tivo DVRs without yanking the drive. http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/ would probably be a good place to ask Tivo specific things

2. Recorded TV will look only as good as your capture device and deinterlacer. Use S-Video (SVHS) input if you can, then composite as a backup choice (yellow RCA connector). Use a well-rated analog capture card, not no-name gear.
e.g. PVR150, PVR250, PVR500, PVR-USB2

3. Look at LinuxMCE http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Use_a_satellite/cable_box_with_the_PVR

4. I don't think changing your TV service provider will help much...they all pretty commonly encrypt the channels you're paying for, making direct digital capture unfeasible. Some cable co.'s are not encrypting all their QAM channels, in which case you could use a HDHomeRun for the unencrypted channels.

I'm not a cable subscriber at present, however every time my local cable company calls to offer me service, I tell them that I'm potential future customer, if only they would offer a service I could use with an HDHomerun. I.e. unencrypted digital cable. (Or at least Firewire enabled tuners with the 5c encryption OFF).

kublikhan
26th February 2008, 07:48
Got a PVR150. The main problem was that I had the bitrate set too low. I forgot that "liveTV" is not really live here and has to have its bitrate set as well. I have it set at 8800 kbps right now(~4gb/hour) and it looks pretty good. I was expecting decent looking SD to take up less space than that. Oh well. Theres other setting like filters, stream type, decoder type, etc than I can play around with that maybe will help. Going to hold off for now on the Archos 605 or Tivo since I see MythTV can get a nice picture if you fiddle with the settings.

cengique
29th February 2008, 21:01
I am a Comcast cable customer in Atlanta and went with their standard HD-DVR in 2007. It's a Motorola DCT3416 with a 160GB hard drive.

It doesn't require a phone line, it has an internal cable modem and gets its own IP address.

Even though there are not too many settings you can play with on the DVR, there's no loss in recording quality for digital channels. I can transfer those digital recordings onto a PC, too, using a firewire connection. It's still a capture, that I have to wait in real-time to transfer shows, but the good thing is that the transfer is made at MPEG-TS level with a MPEG2 stream without any conversions, thus no loss in quality. Then, on the PC I can compress the streams into smaller sizes according to my taste.

I guess this is all for HD, I didn't realize you didn't care about it. SD channels look OK, but the deinterlacer on the Motorola must be losing some information. And you cannot set the bitrate.

I used to be able to get all QAM digital channels directly on my PC until recently. I think they just switched to encryption on the regular channels. I thought they weren't allowed to do that. Maybe my cables or tuner got screwed.