Best way to record HDTV?

Factual Questions
1

I have a TV that takes either Component (Y/Pb/Pr) or DVI input for 1080i. I’d like to record broadcast HDTV and display it on this TV in a way that lets me skip commercials. Furthermore, I’d like to be able to record 3 channels simultaneously while I’m playing back (or record 4 if not playing back). I’d like to be able to record at least 40 hours of HD, although 60-100 hours would be better.

I’m a cheapskate, so what’s the least amount of money to setup this system? I’m okay with a build-your-own solution, buying parts from places like NewEgg. I don’t have a HDTV tuner, so if I buy a DVR, it needs to have antennae input.

I’m thinking Tivo is overpriced and I don’t like subscription fees. A set DVR appliance or HDDVD/Blu-ray burner could work, and maybe also the new VHS recorders. But it seems those would cost more than creating my own media center computer(s) with 4 PCTV tuners. I’m concerned about how to get the signal into my TV, as the manual says the DVI input is not for PCs. (Not sure what they mean by that, I guess the TV doesn’t take DVI computer monitor output, but perhaps it could take DVI output from a PC video card?) Or maybe it’s time to buy a new TV?

Dopers, how are you recording your HDTV?

2

As a DIY solution, MythTV keeps coming up as the way to go.

There are issues regarding HDTV tuner cards and something called the broadcast flag - only some cards will work in North America.

I don’t know if you can use multiple tuner cards in one PC - strangely, recording HDTV is fairly easy, but HDTV playback is CPU-intensive.

3

You’d have to have at least 2-4 tuners to be able to record 3-4 channels at once. I’m not even sure how that would work really.

Tivo is around $300 plus the fee. I think even the worst tuners are 80-100+ so you’d be getting to the Tivo price pretty quick. I bought a Vista computer for 600 that can record 80 or so hours, but only has one tuner. I don’t mind the Microsoft media center interface, but I don’t know if it can do more then two tuners.

They don’t make many HD DVRs, there were a couple made a few years ago. I’m not aware of any made now where there’s no subscription fee unless you do it yourself. The HD VCR is long gone as well.

My TV uses a DVI cable from the computer, but I needed a new card for it. You might have problems getting the computer to output the best video signal for the TV. That was my biggest problem and took awhile, and new driver, to get sorted out.

4

I don’t see how the TV’s DVI port wouldn’t work with a PC. Never heard of such a thing.

I’m a veteran HDTV builder. I’ve built around six and own one and I will be happy to help you, even if that help is to suggest you go with a Tivo.

The first question I need an answer to is: how do you get your TV? Is it a digital cable box? Is it analog cable direct form the wall? Is it over the air? Is it satellite? Is it QAM or do you want to use QAM (and is it available in your area)? Any combination of the above?

Your tuners and cost will be affected by your answer to that basic question. A budget will also help you point you in the right direction.

5

It’s not really strange. The incoming HD signal, whether it’s broadcast, cable, or something else, is just the encoded compressed data stream, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4. So all a recorder has to do is decode the ATSC or QAM signal, do some error checking, and write the still compressed data to disk. Playback requires decompressing that data, so the CPU or dedicated decoder hardware is doing a lot of work.

6

Well, I assume the $300 Tivo also has 1 tuner? Does it record more than one channel simultaneously? I’ve been able to get a PCTV tuner for $60, and it worked fine. Four of those is still less than one Tivo.

Another idea might be if there were a reliable way to download broadcast TV via some sort of peer-to-peer software? I’ve never used BitTorrent, but it looks like they charge a buck or two for each show you get. I’d rather just watch the free online feeds from the major networks. But is there a good way to actually download those rather than stream it? I don’t like the framerates I get with their players, especially if I go to full screen.

7

I’d forgotten all about the broadcast flag, but the article you linked to mentions that it’s still not a concern.

I use a MythTV system for HDTV, but I downsample and compress, because none of my front-end systems are fast enough to show true HD (XBoxes, maybe now that the AppleTV is cheap, I’ll do a Linux hack on it). I’ve only got a single HD tuner, though, plus four analogue. In theory, I could record all five at once, but I don’t know if the hard drive data rate supports that. If you’re looking to have four HD tuners, keep in mind that HD files are friggin’ huge, and MythTV will dump all of your recordings into a single directly. You might have to install a fancy RAID system just to keep up.

Nicely, once things are set up, you don’t need to do any tweaking or maintenance. The system just works. I still miss my Tivo, but I like my ability to play what I want where I want even better.

8

I get my HDTV over the air, from broadcast towers about 10 miles away. With a dinky antenna, I pick up all the channels I’m interested in. My budget is initially $1000, so I can probably just make 4 separate dedicated PCs to the job. But is it cheaper to make 2 better PCs, or a single quad-core monster PC? Hard drives have come down in cost, and I could see myself buying two or four large hard drives. The nice thing is that there’s a nice upgrade path to add more disk space.

On edit: sorry, no idea about the QAM question. I’ll have to read up on what that is.

9

Kinthalis—a quick question please please please—do you know if I can stack external hard drives on an HD TiVo? I called Weaknees and even they didn’t know the answer to this one.

10

QAM is unencrypted digital cable. I pay for basic cable (analog) and I’d have to pay more for a digital cable box in roder to get the digitla channel lineup, however, I get the basic channels and local HD over the same line in digital quality thanks to QAM. I use a QAM tuner to pick those digital channels up and get what is essentially basic digital cable for a lot less. But not all cable companies offer QAM and they can disconnect certain or all channels whenever they feel like it.

So it seems your setup appears to be basic analog cable and an over the air antenna for your HDTV, right? This is the easiest and most inexpensive setup IMHO.

What you need:

  1. A case. I would recommend one specifically designed for HTPC’s like this one: nMEDIAPC Black HTPC 100BA Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - Newegg.com

  2. A mobo. You can skimp here. All you need is one with a pci express (x16) slot and either 2 pci slots or 2 pci express (x1) slots + ethernet and audio. Something like this: ASUS M2NBP-VM CSM AM2 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com

  3. A CPU. I wouldn’t recommend anything more than a dual core. AMD is dirt cheap right now. Try somehting like this: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ - Athlon 64 X2 Brisbane Dual-Core 2.5 GHz Socket AM2 65W Processor - ADO4800DOBOX - Newegg.com

3.5. RAM: 2 gigs. that is all: G.SKILL 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-1GBNQ - Newegg.com

  1. A video card. You want something that will support HDCP since it’s almost standard now and you leave yourself open for a future HDDVD/BlueRay upgrade. It should also handle HD video decoding well. This part will play a big part in determining the quality of the video. Something like this would be good: GIGABYTE Radeon HD 2600XT Video Card GV-RX26T256H - Newegg.com

  2. Tuners! I would suggest, for your setup, to go with two hybrid tuners. You’ll attach the analog cable to both of them, AND your HD antenna to both fo them as well. You could actually record four different shows at the same time (or record three and watch another), PROVIDED that no more than two are in HD and no more than two are on analog. These are great: Leadtek WinFast HDTV Cinema Video Device - Newegg.com

  1. Hard drives. They are cheap, I’d say look around new egg or your local pc fair for deals, they always have them. Off the top of my head HD content takes up a lot of space, something like 10 gigs per hour so get a big drive, 500 gb or a terrabyte if possible, alternatively you can hook up two or more smaller drives on a RAID. What I do with my HD recordings is I delete them when I’m done :wink: IF I want to keep something for an extended period I either burn myself a DVD with an AVI or WMV file, or just recompress the file using something like TMPG express 4.0. You can MUCH better compression rates this way and could lower the size by half or more, specially if you don’t need say 1080i but could do with 720p or perhaps even 480p (dvd quality). This is a sweet deal, but you can go lower: Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS 1TB 3.5" HDD - Newegg.com

Final consideration is noise. Spend a little on a decent (and quite) CPU fan and a quite or fanless video card.

The system outlined above would cost $880, and you could probably skimp a little more here and there and get it down to $600-$700.

As for OS and media software you can either get Myth TV or sage TV and get yourself a copy of windows xp or vista home basic, OR get yourself a copy of vista home premium (they have OEM versions on newegg for considerably less than retail version) and use the built in media center. If you have an XBOX 360 you can use that as an extender so you can watch TV or your video/pictures/music files in another room. They also have other commercial extenders available.

I love you media center PC. Built it myself, I have all of my favorite DVd’s ripped into the hardrive for instant viewing at any time, I get to skip all the annoying commercials ANd get to watch my shows on my time, and internet video services (both free and paid) continue to improve. Good luck!

11

Thanks for the tips, Kinthalis. It’s amazing how much prices have dropped since the last time I built a pc. I’ve already got a case, but I’m going to need a power supply. I think 600W ought to suffice, which I can pick up for about $30. I like the video card you suggested. Just hope the output works with my TV, but even if the DVI doesn’t, the HDTV adapter ought to work with the Y/Pr/Pb outputs. And you were right about my having basic cable. I’ll have to see if they have any QAM channels or HD. If not, I’ll probably dump them.

12

Beware of cheap power supplies. They can cost more in down time and fried components than a more expensive power supply.

13

I think (and I’m to lazy to research it) that cable companies must provide at least the SD versions of local broadcast channels in QAM. So… if

Kinthalis, that looks like a great card. Boy, have those things come down. If that’s the one you have, let me ask you this: if you have only the cable plugged in, can you still use both tuners, or is one tuner dedicated to the ATSC and the other to QAM? If both tuners are available, boy, would that simplify my system and probably save a lot of power.

Speaking of power and heeding mks57’s warning, my original 400 power supply (generic, came with the $40 case) died randomly. It was underpowered. I strongly urge you to do what I ended up doing: looking at the voltage and amp requirements (both!) for all of your devices (including the mother boards), and then shop for your power supply based on the amperage ratings for each of the multiple power rails provided by the power supply (google for instructions if you need help). Not all 600 watt power supplies are the same. Some have multiple 12V rails, 5V rails, different amp ratings for each, and you do need to know all that if you’re going to load your system with cards and hard drives. In fact, you may want to add additional cooling fans, too!

My box has 2 DVR-500’s, an HD card I can’t remember the name of, a RAID card, a video card (no internal video on the MB, and I don’t even have a monitor connected!), a DVD-ROM, and five hard drives, four of which are configured into two each RAID-1 sets. If you plan on keeping stuff you don’t want to lose, RAID is definitely a good idea!

I also mentioned RAID in a previous post – RAID-1 is a mirror, i.e., the second drive is a mirror image of the first. It provides data integrity, but also increased read speeds. With gigabit ethernet, I have tested the system’s ability to stream normal mpeg recordings to all five available devices simultaneously. However, write speeds aren’t increased. This is important, because you may not be able to record multiple programs all at once – especially HD – if you can’t write to the drive fast enough. That’s where the other RAID levels can help you out!

Honestly, I built my system to record from DirectTV, three analogue channels, and digital all at the same time, but I’ve never actually needed it to do so. And more and more, I find it easier just to get my stuff from “other sources” with all of the commercials already pre-skipped for me.

One last note: about noise, remember you can always hide your monster in the closet, and put a small, quiet system at your TV. I bought used Xboxes because they were cheap and hackable, but they won’t do high def. If you really want true HD, you can find other living-room style, quiet PC’s to use as your front end. Since the new AppleTV purports to do high-def, I can’t wait to see who gets MythTV running on it!

14

I think most TiVos except the earliest ones have 2 tuners. You can record one channel and watch another, or record two channels while watching an older recording.

15

There are a few hard drive based HDTV recorders but they always seem very rare and hard to buy or find info on. You might be better off with something like that that records to DVDs: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMR-EZ17S-Recorder-Tuner-Silver/dp/B000O3N74E/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1200693390&sr=1-6 However, reviews are mixed.

HDTivo has 2 ATSC tuners and works great. It will output HDMI or component. Picture is fantastic. The unit just works, no fuss. You can get “Season Passes” to shows and it will record them whatever night or time they come on. You can also choose whether to record repeats or not, how long to keep the recording, whether to record extra minutes at the beginning or end of the show, etc. You need a phone line or Internet connection for Tivo to download the program listings.

I’m a cheapskate but Tivo is one thing I think is worth paying for. I pay $13.00 a month for Tivo and don’t pay for cable or satellite. Tivo helps me get the most out of the HD channels I receive, their program listings show me shows that are coming on in the middle of the night, everything is browsed and controlled from the Tivo remote. It’s very polished.

16

You’ll need four of these, and an intern to change channels and hit record.