How to send recorded shows to computer?

[brianworkman]

I am sorry for this newbie question, but does anyone know of a PC utlitiy or program that allows you to use the "save to vcr" option to move saved shows to my computer (the reason for this is to save to a dvd or vcd instead of a vcr tape).

[Dkerr24]

all you need is a video card with RCA input jacks. My ATI 'All-in-Wonder' Radeon card has those input jacks. Just run the RCA cables from the DTivo to the pc and 'save to vcr'.

Instead of piping it to a pc first, why not just buy a stand-alone DVD recorder and send the shows directly to DVD disc?

[brianworkman]

Thanks, that makes since. Unfortunately, I don't have rca-in on my laptop. I have rca-out, maybe I can find an usb-external tuner though.

The reason I don't want to buy a stand alone dvd burner is that I plan on getting a Windows Media Center by Christmas hopefully. If I bought a DVD burner, my wife would crush me getting another toy, so no media center.

[Brewer4]

Thanks, that makes since. Unfortunately, I don't have rca-in on my laptop. I have rca-out, maybe I can find an usb-external tuner though.

The reason I don't want to buy a stand alone dvd burner is that I plan on getting a Windows Media Center by Christmas hopefully. If I bought a DVD burner, my wife would crush me getting another toy, so no media center.

Hauppauge makes a decent USB tuner called WinTV-PVR-USB2 . I have one and works pretty well on a laptop.

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html

[DPMGR39]

Brian, I have heard alot of people say that have media center PC's, that they can not record movies from HBO and stuff. While most people with standalone DVD recorders do not have these issues, at least not right now.

[ebonovic]

For around $100 you can get a USB based Video Caputre device (Plextor makes one that is DiVX 6 compatibile) and Dazzle has one as weel..

That will capture both the video and audio from Analog connections.

[Paladin369]

WOW, what great advice, I learn so much from you guys.
I have the DirecTV DVR R10, brand new, also have the Plextor PX AV100U Digital Video Converter with USB hooked up th my PC and the R10. When I click onto save to VCR, it play the show I want to save, but it does give me an option on WHERE TO SAVE IT TOO? I have a folder all set for it, how do I point the show to the proper folder?
Thank you

[mwarner]

You have to go into the software you got with the Plextor and 'capture' the video to your hard drive.

-Matt

[madisn]

Brian, (and anyone else) I have been playing with USB TV Tuners and capture cards for the last two weeks. I got a new Dtivo (since its free and all) and hooked up my old one to the computer. Here's what I can tell you from my own experiance.

ATI TV Wonder USB2 - $89 - Nice but a pan in the butt to set up. Requires High Speed USB 2.0. I knew going into this tuner that people were having a lot of install issues. Turns out you can add me to the list. Even with the updated drivers and software off the ATI site it was not a lot of fun. The only way I was able to get this to work was to drop the speed of my USB ports to std usb 2.0 (12mbs) - install the software out of the box (let software fail to see box) - install updated software in the EXACT order listed on their site (again let software put up warning that USB ports are too slow), then increase the usb speed and let software re-detect. This worked fine for about 6 hours - LOVED IT. Then I watched a DVD on my computer and when I went back to the ATI TV I had no sound from Live TV. I could record and playback with sound - but none from live TV. So Back to reinsatll - didn't work - no video or sound. I gave up. In the short time I was able to play with this I loved it - great picture, easy to use. Quality wise this was by far the best USB tuner I tried - but only when it works....

Hauppage Win TV PVR USB2 - Okay, I was going to get the normal Win TV USB 2 (No PVR) but CompUSA left up some older sale tags on the $149 PVR unit so I got it for the sale price of $99. This is an external MPG hardware decoder - and is very easy to set up and install - No problems at all. Because the video is encoded in MPEG before it gets to your system (adjustable settings for CBR VBR etc) there is a little motion blur and slight pixelation. The quality is not as good as the ATI - but it is much less of a headache. User friendly, this was the second best in quality, and 1st in ease of setup.

Pinnacle USB 100E Tuner - 129.95 - I tried this on a whim since I use a lot of pinnacle video editing products. It was easy to install and all, but the quality was lacking - seemed to have a lag of its own and there was excessive motion blur. Not the best choice.

Dazzle Video capture - (Currently Testing - but so far it is okay)

If you can handle the headaches of driver issues and get the ATI USB 2.0 to work - it is the best in tuner cards and worth the $89 - I think a good capture card will work out the absolute best but I am still playing so not quite sure.

[bagman]

I just bought a DVD recorder (LVW-5005X, from Lite-on IT Corp,) for about $135 US. I got it mainly to transfer movies from my video cam to DVD, but today I hooked it up to the DirecTivo, and it works like a charm. You can write a full hour program onto a cheap CD---haven't tried writing to a DVD yet---and you can do it live or by playing a Tivo recording. Seems to me that's a lot easier than going through all the mess of loading it on your computer first, then writing to a DC/DVD. Just my 2 cents.

[sda3]

I used to record shows through my ATI all-in-wonder card for about a year, i got to the point that it was such a pain to do it that things started piling up on my tivo that i wanted to put on DVD. It takes so much more time to record it to computer and then encode and burn it to DVD. It works great, but It takes too long. About 2 months ago i started looking on ebay and found a philips DVD recorder that i got for $60 after shipping. It works perfectly. Then I saw I lite-on DVD recorder and I got it for $35. I put it in my other room and now i can record from both tivos and i spent less that $100. It is much faster and I actually record stuff off my TIVO now. My advice is find a cheap on on ebay. Just be careful and read to make sure it is working.

[Dale Sorel]

Any DV camcorder will also be able to get your shows into a computer.

[ninjadvr]

Thanks for all the info above - just want to check I'm on the same page. I have a DirecTV Samsung DVR and it has the "save to VCR" function. I know I can come "out" of the Samsung with RCA or S-Video and that the Samsung will send to whatever (DVD recorder or VCR) that is plugged in so that's no problem there.

I have a DVD burner on my new Sony T-Series notebook. Does anyone know if I would be able to record directly onto DVD by patching into the notenook via USB or another connection? Or would I have to save to hard disk (presuming I can patch into the notebook) and then burn to DVD?

So...short question: how to record from my DirecTV Samsung DVR to my Sony T370 notebook with a DVD burner?

Thanks!

[Hodaka]

generally you save to the harddisk using capture software of some kind, edit the video if you want, and then burn..

[JimSpence]

The DirecTV DVRs do not have the USB ports enabled, so that method is unavailable.

[ninjadvr]

Thanks Hodaka and JimSpence.

Well, I do see the USB ports on the back of the Samsung DVR and will double-check it since it doesn't have a cover or any lable over it saying it's not activated like it does for the digital audio o/p, but take your word for it that it doesn't work. I was thinking more whether it would be possible to go from RCA to USB or S-Video to USB or firewire or similar - or - do I have to get something like a video capture card with RCA inputs like I see on this thread earlier?

[madisn]

Thanks Hodaka and JimSpence.

Well, I do see the USB ports on the back of the Samsung DVR and will double-check it since it doesn't have a cover or any lable over it saying it's not activated like it does for the digital audio o/p, but take your word for it that it doesn't work. I was thinking more whether it would be possible to go from RCA to USB or S-Video to USB or firewire or similar - or - do I have to get something like a video capture card with RCA inputs like I see on this thread earlier?

Yes, you can go from either RCA or SVideo to USB or Firewire

You dont have to have a video capture card, a video transport cable will do the same as long as you have capture software - (ie Dazzle DVC80) this will enable you to go to the usb or firewire ports whereas a with a card you would run the cables directly to the card.

A card would be preferd, even more so if you have a slower system since it usually has it's own encoding. With just an adapter your computer does all the encoding.

A "tuner" card has additional software for receiving cable / over the air TV.

[ninjadvr]

Thanks Madsin,

I dropped by BestBuy and picked up a Dazzle DVC90, an upgrade over the DVC80 adapter. It also includes video capture sofware Pinnacle, etc. although I have DVDGate included in the Sony package of software that came with my T-series notebook. I've been too busy to set it up and get it working quite yet but it appears I have everything I need. Another cool product I've seen is Hauppauge Computer Works' WinTV-PVR (USB2.0) but since I have an external display with a built in TV tuner already I don't think I need that at the moment. I'll give an update when I get the Dazzle DVC 90 working. Thaks again.

[rbrown3rd]

I have tried all of these methods over the last couple of years. Now, the simplest solution for me is a stand alone Sony DVD recorder connected to my series 1 DVR via S-Video. The quality of the DVDs is more than satisfactory and most people cannot tell them from the original. I used to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the files captured onto my PC so I could edit them, convert them, and burn them to a DVD. Now I just hit record to VCR on my Tivo and hit record on my DVDR and that is that. Maybe I like the simple method because I am just tired of doing all of the PC processing to make a DVD.

[JimSpence]

I also use a standalone DVD recorder. If there is a show I want edit, I rip the video from the DVD and put it into my PC, edit, and reburn.

[goony]

I have tried all of these methods over the last couple of years. Now, the simplest solution for me is a stand alone Sony DVD recorder connected to my series 1 DVR via S-Video...Yup, I came to the same conclusion - a standalone DVD recorder is a much better use of my time and energy that messing with a PC! My DVD recorder also has a hard drive so I do have a way to edit out unwanted junk before burning.

Just becuase I can do editing/burning of DVDs on my PC doesn't mean I should do them that way.

[mwarner]

Just becuase I can do editing/burning of DVDs on my PC doesn't mean I should do them that way.

Great quote, Goony! I was thinking the same thing, but you put it much more eloquently than I could!


-Matt

[RS4]

Because of this forum, I just bought a s/a dvd recorder and will hook it up this weekend to my 3 tivos. Do you set the dvd to record in one particular format over another?

[madisn]

Because of this forum, I just bought a s/a dvd recorder and will hook it up this weekend to my 3 tivos. Do you set the dvd to record in one particular format over another?


I use both methods (S/A DVD recorder and capture device) I use the DVD burner for things I know I want to keep, and in the best possible quality - such as movies. I use the capture device for shows that I can take when I travel.

My SA dvd recorder has several options like a VCR (HQ SQ LQ SLQ) equating to 1hr, 2hr, 4hr, and 8hr. I try and match the setting to the time of the show - in other words I would not record a 2hr movie in 8 hour mode. I also check the actual movie / show time before hand. Frequently a show will be on from say 7:15pm to 9:30pm - and tivo records for that time - at first glance you would think you could not use the 2hr mode becuse the movie is 2hrs 15min long -- but if you look you will find the actual Movie ended at 9:10 but then ran 10 minutes of credits and such, so it would fit in a 2hr mode.

By the way, if anyone is interested the products I found best for transfers were (in order from best to worst):

Dazzle (DV90)
ADS Video Xpress (USB)
Dazzle (USB)
ATI TV tuner
Hauppage TV Tuner
Pinnacle 100E

The ADS USB was nice and the least expensive (59.95 retail) - so it is a close call between this and the Dazzle. The Pinnacle 100E was a disappointment - quality was only okay.

[seacap]

I do a lot of DVD recording. I have a PC strictly for that. You can get a decent (400 MHz or more) USED PC and monitor for around $100-$200, increase the RAM to 512 MB at least and add a 80(or MORE!!!) GIG HDD, Pop a USB card in if it doesn't have one OR an ATi All-In Wonder, and you have an instant Media Center. Add a DVD Burner and you are off and running. You can playback your stuff to TV from the card, Burn it onto a DVD burner, or just watch it on your BEDSIDE(or family room, or...whatever) PC from the $25-17" used monitor.
...Macrovision is another matter...
Good luck

[seacap]

I also have a Dazzle USB DV80 and you can have several connections (S-Video, RCA, )OR the VCR output from the TIVo, to reduce wires running all over your house.
A long USB shielded connector can be run inside a wall down to the next floor (if you NEED to). Ya just gotta be determined to get your saved stuff!!!!