OK, No CableCard what about....?

[serpentine]

OK, i've read into the whole problem with getting certified from cablelabs and such. What i can't find answers to is this...

My cable box outputs a HD signal to my TV (by Coax, Composit, or HDMI). Why can't my regular HD TV Tuner read the same unencrypted video signal (Coax)? And i'm not sure, but i think my card does avivo which can do composit.. i think...

This way, the possibility exists to get 2 cable boxes and record 2 HD channels at once (or view 1 record 1). I really don't care if a pop-up message from the cable box appears as it's changing channels, just as long as it goes away in 5 or seconds or so.

anyways, maybe i'm missing something obvious, but i'll be glad to listen. 

[nascarfan1956]

Being an employee of a major cable provider, I can state definitely that  all existing cable DCT's manufactured by Motorola and SA (Scientific Atlanta) (the manufacturers we currently use) only ouput HD signal via the HDMI, DVI, & Component (RyRbRg) outputs.  Composite and coax outputs only output SD. 

[serpentine]

yea, i just dug up my Avivo thing, and it's the 1Video/2Audio crap.

Well, just doing a quick search, apparently there is HDMI capture cards. So again, is it possible to capture/record from an HDMI card in HD? i can't see why not.

of coarse, i gotta cough up the extra monthly expense of having multiple cable boxes, which is a debate on it's own. But i believe Linux is all about having the option.   

[serpentine]

oops, too quick on that google search. lol.  Apparently there is almost no HDMI/Component capture cards... although i found this

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

Captures up to 720p at 60hz. (aka, also does 1080i at 60 or 50hz). This is just fine considering TV doesn't broadcast anything over 720p/1080i. (According to CNET = http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5119938-1.html)

But if i decided to pick up this card, could i get LinuxMCE to recognize it and 'watch' it? the cable box would do all the switching. 

(goes back to googling Linux drivers for this card)

OK, another tidbit to note. HDMI carries with it HDCP encoding which i'm sure this card would not have. So, if you pay the extra money to get the pro version (which looks like accepts component input) you can use the Component input to capture HD video with no HDCP encoding.  You'd only then have to pair it with the Audio afterwords.

I'm getting the feeling that this is going to cost a LOT of money, and may never work. lol. It just angers me that they designed OCUR and BOCR certifications to not allow DIY systems at all. I mean, if it was just to keep you from back-hacking into the cable systems why don't they take something like ATI's Digital Cable Tuner (with USB output) and allow it to connect to any MCE machine. so it's just a USB-Video bandwidth.  BUT, they don't... this sounds way too much like the big companies paid cablelabs to screw the little man.

[serpentine]

and then i find this...  Not sure what to think of this setup.

http://web.telia.com/~u46110105/ce/reviews/Holo3D.html

[tschak909]

neither of those solutions will work.. no driver support. and when I asked BlackMagic about driver specs so we could write one..., they said um... "NO."

-Thom

[colinjones]

You wouldn't want to capture HDMI anyway for recording! It is an uncompressed stream - would fill a 500GB HDD in under an hour!

[GamerAyers]

I FOUND IT.  And it is pretty cheap.  Its called pvr3000 leadtek.  and it is only $99.  Unfortionately, no Linux drivers, that I found yet.  But it DOES have component input.  I WANT IT.  I WANT LINUXMCE/MYTH/VDR whatever to support it.  It will fix all the things I miss when I go to satellite.


EDIT:  I take that back, it does have Linux Drivers.....specifically UBUNTU drivers: http://www.drivers.mrjuan.com/driver-9411-winfast-pvr3000.html.


If somebody wants to try it, I want to hear if it works or not.

[rlb2]

HI I checked into the card and the encoder chip on the card.  It says it supports
Supports MPEG-2 (MP@ML, SP@ML) and MPEG-1
- 525/60 (NTSC) up to 720x480 @ 30 fps
- 625/50 (PAL) up to 720x576 @ 25 fps
• HDTV MPEG capture

HDTV Capture typically means they pass through the MPEG HDTV stream but don't do anything with it.

So I don't think this is quite it yet, still waiting for the hauppauge card.

Rob

[mikester]

I think the whole HTPC world is waiting on the new Hauppauge card.  I've got my $250 set aside just waiting to order it when available.  Hopefully someone will come up with Linux drivers quickly so this thing can get integrated into Myth/LMCE.