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Capturing TV on computer.


donkpow

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Just now, bikeman564™ said:

tuner stick

Yeah, it's a usb stick connected via splitter with the cable feed (satellite) to my tv. Since the tv is designated "TV2", it has SD feed. The utility that comes with the tuner records ts with lossy audio, my aim is to have uncompressed audio. The selections for audio feed from the tuner are either mono or stereo @ 44.1 kHZ.

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9 minutes ago, donkpow said:

Yeah, it's a usb stick connected via splitter with the cable feed (satellite) to my tv. Since the tv is designated "TV2", it has SD feed. The utility that comes with the tuner records ts with lossy audio, my aim is to have uncompressed audio. The selections for audio feed from the tuner are either mono or stereo @ 44.1 kHZ.

Ah, I don't know what to do :( 

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Here's what I would do

 

Note: Please disable your anti-virus software during installation of WinTV. Note: An Internet connection is required for activation of the software. If you have a WinTV v8 CD-ROM, please insert it into a CD-ROM drive on your PC. If the CD does not autorun, navigate to the CD and run the 'Setup.exe' file. If you do not have a WinTV v8 CD but have an activation code, download the WinTV v8 application from: www.hauppauge.com/wintv8 Click the Download tab. Then click the Download button. Run the downloaded file. Click Step 1: Install Drivers. A blue screen will open and begin installation of your WinTV drivers. When this is complete, click on the button labeled Drivers have been updated Successfully. Click to exit. Click Step 2: Install WinTV v8 The setup application will then open and begin automatically installing the WinTV application components. The main applications installed are the WinTV v8 application for TV watching and recording. If you do not have a WinTV v8 CD-ROM, you will see a message saying Activation required. Click Enter Serial Number and then enter your WinTV v8 activation code. Once complete, click OK then Exit.

To run the WinTV v8 application, double click on the WinTV icon on your Windows desk top. When you run WinTV for the first time, the WinTV Device Setup Wizard appears. Select the TV source that you are using. On some model WinTVs, you have multiple tuners and therefore you can select multiple sources. If your TV source is ATSC digital over-the-air TV Select Digital ATSC and click Next. In the ATSC Setup menu, click Next. You will see the Digital ATSC Scan scanning for digital over-the-air channels. The digital TV scanning process will scan from channels 2 to 51. As TV channels are found, they will appear in the Channel box. When complete, click Next / Next and OK. Note: if you do not receive any ATSC digital TV channels, an antenna signal booster might be needed. After adding a signal booster, see below for instructions on rescanning and the Troubleshooting section for information on choosing an antenna. If your TV source is Clear QAM Digital Cable TV Clear QAM digital cable TV channels are those TV channels broadcast on a digital cable network which are unencrypted (‘free to view’). If you are using cable TV with clear QAM programs, chose Digital QAM and Next. Encrypted channels are automatically not selected. The resulting channels in the list might be both standard and high definition channels. Rescanning TV channels If you want to rescan for TV channels, click the Configuration menu (Gear button in the lower left corner of WinTV v8). Then click on the Devices tab. Chose your WinTV device by clicking on it, then click Tuner setup. Chose the TV format you want to scan, then click Next. Click Next and a new scan will be started. When the scan is complete, click Next / Next and OK

Once the WinTV v8 application is open, click the Watch TV button to watch TV . To see the TV Channel list, click your right mouse button in the TV window to display the Options menu. Select Find Channel. You will see the channel list. To display the channel list all the time, while the channel list is displayed, click the Channel list display always on button. Options menu The Options menu is the main menu where you can select channels, turn on close captions, open the TV Scheduler, show the TV Guide and many other of the most important TV control functions. To bring up the Options Menu, click your right mouse button once in the TV window or click the Options menu button on the WinTV v8 screen To see the channel list, click on Find channel. You will see the list of channels which have been scanned. To show the Channel menu as part of the TV window, click the Channel list always on icon at the top of the channel list. The channel list will also be displayed if you just enter any character (a - z) in live TV mode. To turn on Close captions, click on Subtitle Stream. To manually schedule a TV recording, or to see which programs have been scheduled, click on Scheduler.

To turn on the Always on Top mode, click on Stay On Top. If you have a WinTV with multiple tuners (the WinTVdualHD, WinTV-quadHD or the WinTV-HVR-2205), you can enable Picture-in-Picture. Click Picture in Picture to see the PIP settings. Audio Stream: if the current TV broadcast offers more than one audio stream / language, you can select the other stream / language here. View Mode: the sub options Normal, No Title and Fullscreen are available. In the Normal view all control elements and buttons are visible. In the No Title view only the TV image is shown. In the Fullscreen view the TV image fills the whole screen. You can also switch between these views by double clicking inside the TV window, or by pressing W on the keyboard. Position and size of the application window for the Normal and No Title views are saved separately. Stay On Top: if enabled, the WinTV application window will remain in view over any other application windows, even if it is not selected. To turn on, select "Stay On Top". To turn off, select this option again. Teletext: displays teletext pages on top of the TV image, if available. Watch, Pause and Record TV WinTV v8 is always recording video to your PC’s hard drive while TV is being displayed. In this way, you can immediately skip back and replay the TV program you are watching. Clicking on the Pause button will cause the video to pause, while clicking the Record button will cause the current TV program to be recorded to hard disk. Recording your TV shows If you want to record a TV show you are watching: - Click the Record button. The recorded file name will popup on the video for a few seconds as the recording starts. - When you are finished recording, click the Stop button. - Click the Playback file button and select the last file recorded to play the video you just recorded - To play a video you recorded earlier, click the Playback File button and then move your mouse and click once on the video you want to play. Click Open and the file will start playing. The recorded video file is saved in the directory set in Recordings directory. The default directory is MyVideos. To change this directory, click the Settings menu button and then the Capture tab. Every time you record a file, a new file is automatically created. The file will be formatted as: (ChannelNumber)_(ChannelName)YearMonthDay_TIme. For digital TV programs, the quality level recorded is the same as it is transmitted by the TV station. For example, if the TV station is transmitting a high-definition program, WinTV will record the program in high-definition

 

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8 minutes ago, Chris... said:

Here's what I would do

 

Note: Please disable your anti-virus software during installation of WinTV. Note: An Internet connection is required for activation of the software. If you have a WinTV v8 CD-ROM, please insert it into a CD-ROM drive on your PC. If the CD does not autorun, navigate to the CD and run the 'Setup.exe' file. If you do not have a WinTV v8 CD but have an activation code, download the WinTV v8 application from: www.hauppauge.com/wintv8 Click the Download tab. Then click the Download button. Run the downloaded file. Click Step 1: Install Drivers. A blue screen will open and begin installation of your WinTV drivers. When this is complete, click on the button labeled Drivers have been updated Successfully. Click to exit. Click Step 2: Install WinTV v8 The setup application will then open and begin automatically installing the WinTV application components. The main applications installed are the WinTV v8 application for TV watching and recording. If you do not have a WinTV v8 CD-ROM, you will see a message saying Activation required. Click Enter Serial Number and then enter your WinTV v8 activation code. Once complete, click OK then Exit.

To run the WinTV v8 application, double click on the WinTV icon on your Windows desk top. When you run WinTV for the first time, the WinTV Device Setup Wizard appears. Select the TV source that you are using. On some model WinTVs, you have multiple tuners and therefore you can select multiple sources. If your TV source is ATSC digital over-the-air TV Select Digital ATSC and click Next. In the ATSC Setup menu, click Next. You will see the Digital ATSC Scan scanning for digital over-the-air channels. The digital TV scanning process will scan from channels 2 to 51. As TV channels are found, they will appear in the Channel box. When complete, click Next / Next and OK. Note: if you do not receive any ATSC digital TV channels, an antenna signal booster might be needed. After adding a signal booster, see below for instructions on rescanning and the Troubleshooting section for information on choosing an antenna. If your TV source is Clear QAM Digital Cable TV Clear QAM digital cable TV channels are those TV channels broadcast on a digital cable network which are unencrypted (‘free to view’). If you are using cable TV with clear QAM programs, chose Digital QAM and Next. Encrypted channels are automatically not selected. The resulting channels in the list might be both standard and high definition channels. Rescanning TV channels If you want to rescan for TV channels, click the Configuration menu (Gear button in the lower left corner of WinTV v8). Then click on the Devices tab. Chose your WinTV device by clicking on it, then click Tuner setup. Chose the TV format you want to scan, then click Next. Click Next and a new scan will be started. When the scan is complete, click Next / Next and OK

Once the WinTV v8 application is open, click the Watch TV button to watch TV . To see the TV Channel list, click your right mouse button in the TV window to display the Options menu. Select Find Channel. You will see the channel list. To display the channel list all the time, while the channel list is displayed, click the Channel list display always on button. Options menu The Options menu is the main menu where you can select channels, turn on close captions, open the TV Scheduler, show the TV Guide and many other of the most important TV control functions. To bring up the Options Menu, click your right mouse button once in the TV window or click the Options menu button on the WinTV v8 screen To see the channel list, click on Find channel. You will see the list of channels which have been scanned. To show the Channel menu as part of the TV window, click the Channel list always on icon at the top of the channel list. The channel list will also be displayed if you just enter any character (a - z) in live TV mode. To turn on Close captions, click on Subtitle Stream. To manually schedule a TV recording, or to see which programs have been scheduled, click on Scheduler.

To turn on the Always on Top mode, click on Stay On Top. If you have a WinTV with multiple tuners (the WinTVdualHD, WinTV-quadHD or the WinTV-HVR-2205), you can enable Picture-in-Picture. Click Picture in Picture to see the PIP settings. Audio Stream: if the current TV broadcast offers more than one audio stream / language, you can select the other stream / language here. View Mode: the sub options Normal, No Title and Fullscreen are available. In the Normal view all control elements and buttons are visible. In the No Title view only the TV image is shown. In the Fullscreen view the TV image fills the whole screen. You can also switch between these views by double clicking inside the TV window, or by pressing W on the keyboard. Position and size of the application window for the Normal and No Title views are saved separately. Stay On Top: if enabled, the WinTV application window will remain in view over any other application windows, even if it is not selected. To turn on, select "Stay On Top". To turn off, select this option again. Teletext: displays teletext pages on top of the TV image, if available. Watch, Pause and Record TV WinTV v8 is always recording video to your PC’s hard drive while TV is being displayed. In this way, you can immediately skip back and replay the TV program you are watching. Clicking on the Pause button will cause the video to pause, while clicking the Record button will cause the current TV program to be recorded to hard disk. Recording your TV shows If you want to record a TV show you are watching: - Click the Record button. The recorded file name will popup on the video for a few seconds as the recording starts. - When you are finished recording, click the Stop button. - Click the Playback file button and select the last file recorded to play the video you just recorded - To play a video you recorded earlier, click the Playback File button and then move your mouse and click once on the video you want to play. Click Open and the file will start playing. The recorded video file is saved in the directory set in Recordings directory. The default directory is MyVideos. To change this directory, click the Settings menu button and then the Capture tab. Every time you record a file, a new file is automatically created. The file will be formatted as: (ChannelNumber)_(ChannelName)YearMonthDay_TIme. For digital TV programs, the quality level recorded is the same as it is transmitted by the TV station. For example, if the TV station is transmitting a high-definition program, WinTV will record the program in high-definition

 

Okay. That's easy. :lol:

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On 10/20/2017 at 5:24 PM, groupw said:

Or just wait for the first thunderstorm to kill you Happauge tuner card. They fail if they just THINK there is lightning in the area. Stopped after my 3rd card. Neat when it worked...

I feel like tuner cards had their day in the early 2000s.  Is there a legit reason to even consider using one?

Tom

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31 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

I feel like tuner cards had their day in the early 2000s.  Is there a legit reason to even consider using one?

Tom

Tuner cards allow you to get the current episodes of M.A.S.H and I Love Lucy.  Many people do not know they are a still in production.

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2 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Tuner cards allow you to get the current episodes of M.A.S.H and I Love Lucy.  Many people do not know they are a still in production.

I've got A Team on in the background! Probably too recent for a tuner card to access?

Tom

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I've been watching episodes of Knight Rider, trying to catch a decent sound effect of Kitt in an idle moment. I may have to fudge it a little bit in my audio software to get what I want. Recording off the TV is as close to original as I can record. Anything on the internet is likely to be compressed audio in aac or mp3 format.

Another time, my BIL wanted me to make a DVD of a movie he recorded on the DVR. In that case I recorded the whole movie onto the computer and made the DVD for him.

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9 minutes ago, donkpow said:

I've been watching episodes of Knight Rider, trying to catch a decent sound effect of Kitt in an idle moment. I may have to fudge it a little bit in my audio software to get what I want. Recording off the TV is as close to original as I can record. Anything on the internet is likely to be compressed audio in aac or mp3 format.

Another time, my BIL wanted me to make a DVD of a movie he recorded on the DVR. In that case I recorded the whole movie onto the computer and made the DVD for him.

For a while, maybe still, Tivo had an app that allowed you to transfer recorded DVR shows to a PC and edit them or burn them. Some content was "restricted", but it made it pretty easy.  Before that, ReplayTV was even easier to grab files from. I remember when I retired that one (after the change from SD to HD), I just pulled the HD and all the files were there as mpg files. Just had to play them to see what they were (filenames were some long number maybe derived from time/date).

Tom

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1 minute ago, Razors Edge said:

For a while, maybe still, Tivo had an app that allowed you to transfer recorded DVR shows to a PC and edit them or burn them. Some content was "restricted", but it made it pretty easy.  Before that, ReplayTV was even easier to grab files from. I remember when I retired that one (after the change from SD to HD), I just pulled the HD and all the files were there as mpg files. Just had to play them to see what they were (filenames were some long number maybe derived from time/date).

Tom

This is not something I do that often. I've had the device for some number of years. The most I used it was when the satellite was out. I watched local over the air channels on the PC. I don't have a "smart" tv.

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2 minutes ago, donkpow said:

This is not something I do that often. I've had the device for some number of years. The most I used it was when the satellite was out. I watched local over the air channels on the PC. I don't have a "smart" tv.

Baby steps. Do you at least have an HD TV? The smart part is fairly irrelevant now with the ability to add DVRs, Apple TV, Roku, Firestick, apps in your DVD player, laptop connections, streaming from your phone, etc.. A bazillion ways to get content now. That's why the tuner cards are odd to me.

Tom

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Just now, Razors Edge said:

Baby steps. Do you at least have an HD TV? The smart part is fairly irrelevant now with the ability to add DVRs, Apple TV, Roku, Firestick, apps in your DVD player, laptop connections, streaming from your phone, etc.. A bazillion ways to get content now. That's why the tuner cards are odd to me.

Tom

No HD. The satellite box letterboxes HD video for viewing. It is a "flat screen" TV with stereo.

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Just now, donkpow said:

No HD. The satellite box letterboxes HD video for viewing. It is a "flat screen" TV with stereo.

Spend a couple hundred bucks on a cheap HD TV.  Jeebus. Whatever you have in SD is a bazillion times better in 1080 (forget 4k for now). You see the difference when you watch on your laptop, so why stick with the old TV?

Tom

 

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1 minute ago, Razors Edge said:

Spend a couple hundred bucks on a cheap HD TV.  Jeebus. Whatever you have in SD is a bazillion times better in 1080 (forget 4k for now). You see the difference when you watch on your laptop, so why stick with the old TV?

Tom

 

What's the big deal? When this one breaks, I'll get a new TV.

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I mainly used mine to record F1 races so I didn't have to get up early on Sundays. When I moved from XP to Windows 7, it wasn't near as user friendly but still usable most of the time. When Charter/Spectrum did it's most recent digital upgrade, it pretty much rendered the PC as DVR useless. I just don't like paying monthly fees for a DVR service of very limited use for me. 

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6 minutes ago, groupw said:

I mainly used mine to record F1 races so I didn't have to get up early on Sundays. When I moved from XP to Windows 7, it wasn't near as user friendly but still usable most of the time. When Charter/Spectrum did it's most recent digital upgrade, it pretty much rendered the PC as DVR useless. I just don't like paying monthly fees for a DVR service of very limited use for me. 

Our DVR is part of the satellite box. It also allows you to pause or go back on live programs. I just need to make video portable. The box is connected to the internet via the home power system but I can't get access to the box's internal storage. I guess that is the heart of "The Hopper" system. Which costs more.

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I would also consider trying a couple of free PVR software packages:

https://www.nextpvr.com/

http://sichbopvr.com/

I say this because Hauppauge's WinTV software wasn't the best.

In my case, I stopped using my WinTV HVR card when cable went encrypted, and my only option was an OTA digital antenna, or just to use my TiVo.  My current TiVo has a lifetime subscription and six tuners, so it does what I need.  I agree with @Razors Edge , the cards were great until a lot of sources became encrypted.  The only options now for PC that I'd find useful are either using a SiliconDust HDHomeRun, or a Ceton InfiniTV, both of which have CableCARD slots.

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1 hour ago, Honey Badger said:

I would also consider trying a couple of free PVR software packages:

https://www.nextpvr.com/

http://sichbopvr.com/

I say this because Hauppauge's WinTV software wasn't the best.

In my case, I stopped using my WinTV HVR card when cable went encrypted, and my only option was an OTA digital antenna, or just to use my TiVo.  My current TiVo has a lifetime subscription and six tuners, so it does what I need.  I agree with @Razors Edge , the cards were great until a lot of sources became encrypted.  The only options now for PC that I'd find useful are either using a SiliconDust HDHomeRun, or a Ceton InfiniTV, both of which have CableCARD slots.

I don't understand how encryption would stop recording. I take the feed straight off the cable that goes to the TV. In order for encryption to work, the TV would have to decrypt the streams.

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53 minutes ago, donkpow said:

I don't understand how encryption would stop recording. I take the feed straight off the cable that goes to the TV. In order for encryption to work, the TV would have to decrypt the streams.

In my area, all of the cable feeds are now encrypted, something which is spreading and covers most major metropolitan areas.  You can't record an encrypted stream without decrypting first.  Standard method for decryption is either a cable box (which has a CableCARD inside it usually to decrypt) or a device that supports a CableCARD.  MyTiVo uses one, and the SilconDust HDHomeRun devices and Ceton InfiniTV tuner cards take them as well.

Hauppauge cards don't have a CableCARD slot; they can tune OTA television, and Clear QAM (unencrypted) cable signals.  They're useless in an environment where the broadcast stream is encrypted.

If you can get cable on a Hauppauge card, it means that the signal you're getting isn't encrypted.  The same is true if you can plug your cable signal directly into a TV without a cable box and receive channels, unless the TV has a CableCARD slot; I haven't seen that since Sony's huge-and-heavy HD tube TVs.

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7 hours ago, Honey Badger said:

In my area, all of the cable feeds are now encrypted, something which is spreading and covers most major metropolitan areas.  You can't record an encrypted stream without decrypting first.  Standard method for decryption is either a cable box (which has a CableCARD inside it usually to decrypt) or a device that supports a CableCARD.  MyTiVo uses one, and the SilconDust HDHomeRun devices and Ceton InfiniTV tuner cards take them as well.

Hauppauge cards don't have a CableCARD slot; they can tune OTA television, and Clear QAM (unencrypted) cable signals.  They're useless in an environment where the broadcast stream is encrypted.

If you can get cable on a Hauppauge card, it means that the signal you're getting isn't encrypted.  The same is true if you can plug your cable signal directly into a TV without a cable box and receive channels, unless the TV has a CableCARD slot; I haven't seen that since Sony's huge-and-heavy HD tube TVs.

Okay, thanks. I use the tuner card like a tv. In other words, the tuner is tuned to a single channel and I switch between different channels on the satellite receiver. I would guess that if I tried to tap the stream ahead of the satellite box, I wouldn't be able to get it. Same as trying to get 'pay for view' on this side of the box.

I looked at those links and it is easy to see how much better that software is compared to the Hauppauge software. I don't know about the second one. I started to look at it last night but had to go. I'll look at it some more later today.

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