Software That Can Record From Television

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

ok, well i have this problem..well a problem and a question.. the problem isi dont know how i can take somthing that is being shown on my TV, or on a cable television show.The question isWhat software.hardware would i have to buy in order to do this?

[BuffaloHelp 24]

Any TV tuner card for your computer will have capture capability. I think this would be the easiest way to capture.Alternative solution is to install video capturing device. Pinnacle is one of the popular devices on the market.While TV tuner card will be the cheapest solution, sometimes the capturing software might be limited. There are TV tuners and HDTV tuners. The capturing software may only support to 800x600 resolution. Video capturing device can support in higher resolution and can capture from multiple sources, i.e. composite video, s-video, USB and Firewire sources, but the price often starts around $80 dollars. I picked up AverTV TV tuner card for a desktop for $19 dollars few years back and I am still content with its performance.It all depends on what and how you want to record from television stations.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

you seem to be able to answer all of my video questions smart person you are :Pokay, i shall look into buying a video capturing device like maybe the one you have.all i am looking to do is somehow get 30 minutes to an hour of a TV show and save it on my computer like in an AVI format or somthing similar.

[BuffaloHelp 24]

I was, after all, leading support for Afterdawn

The capturing devices will encode to mpeg1 or mpeg2 on the fly. This means you don't need to have huge hard drive space to store your 30 minutes of video. AVI is uncompressed and will save it as huge file.

To calculate how big of AVI file you'll have, as I sent this information before, I will quote what I wrote:

To calculate the size in kilobytes (K) of one frame of uncompressed video, use the following formula:
Frame size K = ([Pixel Width x Pixel Height x Bit Depth] / 8) / 1024

Where 8 represents an 8-bit byte, and 1024 equals the number of bytes per kilobytes. For example, the size in kilobytes of an uncompressed frame of full-size (640 x 480), 24-bit video is:

Frame size K = ([640 x 480 x 24] / 8) / 1024 = 900K

To determine the file size of one second of uncompressed video, multiply the image size by the number of frames per second (fps). For example, one second of uncompressed, full-size, full-speed (30 fps), 24-bit video is:

900K x 30 = 27 MB

To determine how compression affects file size, divide the file size by the compression ratio. For example, a 10:1 compression ratio will make a 27 MB file 2.7 MB.

The following information compares the disk space requirements for NTSC video (640 x 480 and 29.97fps) compressed using various date rates. The data rate information is shown for each of the standard data rate calculation methods: by frames and by seconds:

60 KB/Frame: 1.8 MB/sec 9.25 min/GB
80 KB/Frame: 2.4 MB/sec 6.94 min/GB
100 KB/Frame: 3.0 MB/sec 5.56 min/GB
120 KB/Frame: 3.6 MB/sec 4.63 min/GB
140 KB/Frame: 4.2 MB/sec 3.97 min/GB
160 KB/Frame: 4.8 MB/sec 3.47 min/GB
180 KB/Frame: 5.4 MB/sec 3.08 min/GB
200 KB/Frame: 6.0 MB/sec 2.78 min/GB

The DV standard of 720 x 480 video with 5:1 compression requires 3.6 MB/sec and 4.63 min/GB.

Uncompressed AVI file in DVI format will render 2GB of space for every 9 minutes and 26 seconds of video. It's huge.

[kdr_98 0]

Now they even start with digital television in our region.

You can capture DVB-T from air and DVB-S from satelite (Astra).
In our country DVB-T if for free but only 3 stations are on it.
For DVB-S you need a decoder card or a special satelite decoder.

On most of the decoders you can record on a hard disk, but there is no writing device for moving it to CD/DVD.

So if you only rarely capture some programs the best will be a TV card in your PC.
There are 2 types : with and without hardware MPEG compression.
(If you have a slow PC you better take a card with hardware compression).
If you want to record more programs at the same time , you need a TV card for each channel.
(there exist also cards with 2 tuners).

For software you can choose Windows Media Center Edition.
Or on your existing windows Mediaportal
(on this site you can also find the supported hardware).

[bhavesh 0]

Windows Media center is not a good option, you need not to install a new operating system. Try this.Buy a TV Tuner card and a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) software, I am using InterVideo WinDVR, you can download it from http://www.windvdpro.com/en/ (costs $79.95), but a fully functional 30-day trial version is available. WinDVR works with most TV-Tuners with WDM drivers, so first check your TV-Tuner card. One of the great feature of this software is Schedulling, it can be set for a one-time or a recurring session.Formats in which program can be saved is MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. And hardware requirement to record at highest video resolution is :Processor - 1.5 GHz or aboveRAM - 512 MB atleastHard Drive - at least 7200 rpmand a lots of gigabytes of free space in hard disk.

[garbage 0]

well have you otten your v tuner card and have you been able to do what you wanted to do or record what you needed.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

1) otten? i think you mean gotten2) if you do mean gotten, then no i have not i havent bought it yet.. im not looking to do this for a little bit into the future but im just curious about it now.i dont even know if i am going to get into it, i might just Rip the DVD's when they come out on DVD.

[darran 0]

I did a record on an advertisement shown on T.V. the other day using a DVD recorder. It is really a simple process, the DVD recorder allows you to burn them into DVD Roms and you can simply rip them using Magic DVD Ripper or other software which you prefer and they will be extracted to your computer in the format you want. I prefer MPEG or AVI so that works for me. I hope I understood your dilemma well enough

[kdr_98 0]

I use also use a DVD recorder with build in hard drive of 80GB.I know it's not a recent model, but you can buy them for a good price.They are also comsuming less power then a computer,and are easy to program.You can record on your harddrive for more then 20h (even 37h in a medium quality better then VHS).Afterwards you can even edit the advertisement out if you want and then write the result to a DVD (+R +RW ... ).If you want more compression like DIVx and so , you can import the DVD on your computer.compress it and then store it again on a CD or DVD.The HD recorder can even play DIVx in most of the cases.

Edited September 11, 2006 by kdr_98 (see edit history)

[Lyon2 0]

I use the same technique of darran, the problem is that dvd recoders are not that cheap, at least the one with higher quality, but i guess anyone should do this days, technology is getting cheaper everyday.

[darran 0]

I agree it cost quite a sum of money to get a really good DVD Recorder, but I am sure it is worth it. Imagine you could record many things and everything you want, for the DVD Recorder I know, it allows me to record 60 hours of shows, imagine that! And if you do not want to lose the show you can record them to the DVD or store in your computer or any external storage like a hard disk. But this is definitely the way to go with recording items from a t.v.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

i never really thought about getting a DVD Recorder.. i remember when they first came out they were like 400-500 bucks, now im looking online and i see ones for 130-290 dollars. kinda got cheaper, but i would have to wait until i get a job (hopefuly soon!) to pay for it.. umm i am seriously thinking about getting a DVD recorder... for the CD's i would need a DVD CD right? to put in the DVD slot? (stupid question, im just asking)

[darran 0]

Yes, you need a DVD Rom, but for some reason I couldn't get a DVD+R to work only a DVD-R. Can anyone tell me the difference in the standard?

[BuffaloHelp 24]

DVD ROM is different from DVD+R and DVD-R.DVD ROM is/was mainly used with the early version of DVD+-R drive for your computer. DVD-R was initially called DVD general media usage (or general authoring) and was only intended for copy-protected Hollywood releases. While waiting for DVD-R to be released to the general public, companies like Richo, Sony and Phillips (called DVDRW Alliance) made DVD+R and RW format to be used to tap into the new and marketable computer world. When DVD-R made dual layer format, DVD-R was released to the public by Panasonic, Toshiba, and Pioneer relased first 2.4GB then 4.7GB. The Hollywood industry reserves DVD-R DL a 9.6GB disc (that's how you get so many features on a single disc...it used to be on two discs). Bottom line, they all work the same but different players will play only one format. Different players will record on only one format. Thus Sony was the first to release dual format DVD+-R/RW player and recorder.But I am really digressing from this topic. Make a new topic if you have further question.