High Definition Recording?

[pagelmcb]

I have a 1080p LCD HDTV and use an HDMI input port from my new HTPC. I have a Hauppauge 1600 and MCE250, that record my cable fine but I want to be able to record the high def stuff from my cable set top box(STB).

The STB does have the following outputs: RF (cable coax), HDMI, component, s-video, and ieee 1394 (firewire). There are also some USB ports but I don't know if they are inputs or outputs...

My point is that I don't know how to record High Def TV. Am I going to have to buy a HDMI Capture Card or the Hauppauge HD PVR? I know that there have been people recording HD shows for a long time now because they have been available on the internet, but I want to know what I need to do to be able to record HD on my SageTV.

I did try the RF out (cable) from the STB and it does display/record the shows from the STB, but it is visible as basic 480i quality in SageTV. The hauppauge 1600 does have the digital input but (iirc) that is for over-the-air digital.

So, again, am I going to have to buy a HDMI Capture Card or the Hauppauge HD PVR? Or is there something else I am missing or something that you recommend?

-------------------
HTPC Specs:
C2D e6300 CPU
2GB OCZ DDR2-800
Nvidia 7900GT (DVI-to-HDMI cable)
Hauppauge HVR-1600
Hauppauge PVR-250-MCE

Other Components:
Motorola STB through Charter Communications Cable
46" Samsung 1080p LCD HDTV

[paulbeers]

I am not aware of any consumer grade devices that can record via HDMI. The only option at this point is to record via component with the HDPVR. This takes advantage of the analog "hole".....

[peternm22]

The firewire port would provide the best quality, and would be the cheapest option (you would just need a firewire cable). Unfortunately, a lot of cable companies encrypt some/all of their channels over firewire (5C encryption) making it impossible to record those channels. It can vary by cable company and by city which channels are locked out.

The other option is the HD-PVR from Hauppauge. It would record form the component out from the STB, and transfer it to the PC over USB. This would result is some quality loss (since it is a digital to analog conversion). Most people don't seem to notice much of a difference though (I don't have the HD-PVR, so I can't personally comment on the quality).

-Peter

[evilpenguin]

Well, you've got two 3 options for recording HDTV through cable...

1) Some cable companies have HDTV channels available in ClearQAM, which you should be able to tune/capture through your PVR-1600. You can do a forum search to see how to add that. The downside to this is that you're be limited to which channels aren't encrypted. If there are encrypted channels that you want to capture then you need to move onto option 2or 3

2) Buy an HD-PVR and record any HDTV channel your STB can display via component. The downside to this is both the cost of the HD-PVR, the immature state of the firmware (its getting better all the time), and the horse power required to play back the recordings (Not an issue if you have an HD100).

3) If your Motorolla STB has a firewire port you can also use that to capture HDTV. Typically you'll be able to capture more channels than you can via ClearQAM but less than you can with the HD-PVR. Check out this thread for details...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9288

(I know its long, but you only need to read the posts linked to in the top post)

Personally, I use #1 and #3 together and am able to record all but a few HDTV channels on my cable system.

[pagelmcb]

Ok, I got a pci-e (1x) firewire card and the 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable. Im still using windows XP but it still installed my Motorola DCH-3200 drivers with that 'drivers not signed' warning. then I installed that CapDVHS program and it records the channel I am watching on my STB. It recorded 1920x1080 for a one minute test mpeg (128MB for 1 minute of video). I first used windows media player and the video and sound were a bit choppy. But when I watched in sagetv as an imported video it looked and sounded great.

Now, can someone post some links to threads that can help me get this recording in sage, and of course, not using as much memory.

Thanks for your help so far!!

EDIT:
I'm actually stumbling through the Firewire support thread now. Im just going to try to get it where i can record in sage first... then I will work on channel changing later...