What's the ideal way to get HD video from my DirecTV box to my PC?

[Stoneyguy]

Title pretty much sums it up. I've been recording alot of football games and now my HDD is getting full on my DirecTV box. I have a Blu-ray burner on my PC and would like to archive the games onto it. The problem is getting it from the DirecTV box to my PC in as great of quality as possible.

Anybody know what capture card would work best or if there is some other ideal way?

[Ancient]

There is no way to get high quality HD video from a DirecTV HD DVR to your computer for archiving. There are video capture cards available that have component inputs but HD output from the DVR through component would only be 480i, since it's analog, so you'd lose the original HD quality.

The only way to make extra space for recording would be to buy an external hard-drive for the HD DVR. You can buy external drive setups for that purpose up to 2TB.

[Bman212121]

There is no way to get high quality HD video from a DirecTV HD DVR to your computer for archiving. There are video capture cards available that have component inputs but HD output from the DVR through component would only be 480i, since it's analog, so you'd lose the original HD quality.

The only way to make extra space for recording would be to buy an external hard-drive for the HD DVR. You can buy external drive setups for that purpose up to 2TB.

Component can do up to 1080p, so it might be possible to attempt a playback and record. (Composite is only 480i) Other than that it doesn't appear that you can just dump data from the DirecTV DVR to your pc.

What model DVR do you have? According to Directv the newer models let you simply plug in an external HDD via esata to expand your storage space. You could just get an enclosure and you might be able to swap HDDs around with recordings.

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/article.jsp?assetId=P5980155

[Ancient]

Component can do up to 1080p, so it might be possible to attempt a playback and record. (Composite is only 480i) Other than that it doesn't appear that you can just dump data from the DirecTV DVR to your pc.

What model DVR do you have? According to Directv the newer models let you simply plug in an external HDD via esata to expand your storage space. You could just get an enclosure and you might be able to swap HDDs around with recordings.

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/article.jsp?assetId=P5980155
Sorry, what I meant to say is that any video capture cards with component inputs limit the signal to 480i. At least that's the way it was last time I looked for a similar solution. However, I looked around to see if there was anything new and found out that Hauppauge came out with a new unit some months back that can capture HD output (via component/up to 1080i) from cable and satellite boxes.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116030

Here's a review of it. Apparently it works fairly well. The reviews on NewEgg are a bit mixed, though.

http://www.geektonic.com/2008/06/hauppauge-hd-pvr-update-good-bad-and.html

At least there's one alternative available now.

[Rakeesh]

If your directv box is a series 1 or 2 directivo, I can tell you exactly how you'd extract the video directly from the hard disk as the encryption is very easy to defeat (though it will still take some time to setup.) Don't know how to do it from the directv in house dvr's though.

[Stoneyguy]

I'm using the HR-21 model (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=directv+hr21&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=16276276826577734633&ei=6kLFSvWaOsnT8AbW0PhH&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=image&resnum=4&ved=0CBcQ8gIwAw#). Is the content on the HDD in this model encrypted as well?

Thanks for the link Ancient. Seems like the quality of that product is in question though :(

[Ancient]

I'm using the HR-21 model (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=directv+hr21&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=16276276826577734633&ei=6kLFSvWaOsnT8AbW0PhH&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=image&resnum=4&ved=0CBcQ8gIwAw#). Is the content on the HDD in this model encrypted as well?

Thanks for the link Ancient. Seems like the quality of that product is in question though :(
Ya, a lot of the NewEggers are complaining about the build quality. It's a shame that they finally come out with a functional product and then make it cheap. Right now it's the only game in town though, unfortunately. For a while DirecTV was making a card for the PC that would have allowed us to integrate DirecTV into Media Center. For some reason they dropped those plans suddenly. Wasn't happy about that.

The content on the HR-21 is encrypted. afaik, nobody has figured out how to get past it and pull content yet.

I like my DirecTV but if they don't come up with something to compete with CableCARD tuners I'll be going back to cable once Centon comes out with their tuner.

[Stoneyguy]

I can see the point to encrypting movies and special events, but they should leave other items unencrypted so that we can free our HDDs of precious space. :(

[Mr Bigman]

No luck either.

I have the HR21 and its a nice box but forget it not gonna happen.

You could download directv2PC but that only plays back recorded stuff through network and you have to have a HDCP lcd anyway so yea your ****ed shaw.

Get a comcast teir 3 box and firewire it to your pc and see how that goes.

Superfly does it so can you.

[nrdstrm]

In the future, you may want to get an HD TIVO or Tivo Series 3 and just pay for the service. The price warrants it considering it has "Tivotogo". This lets you transfer files to your PC. I am only checking up on it now, because the Verizon DVR sucks, and if I get a TIVO HD I can plug an external drive into it to increase capacity, and also transfer to PC to convert to any other format (DVD, Iphone, etc)...

[Mr Bigman]

The whole drm thing is killing this feture or opprotunity cuz of the bs we have to endure for ling in this country which loves copywrite laws.

[XDanger]

The whole drm thing is killing this feture or opprotunity cuz of the bs we have to endure for ling in this country which loves copywrite laws.

More draconian measures would needed to be introduced to allow us more freedom

Like a retina scan drm system

[Stoneyguy]

This (http://www.buy.com/prod/avermedia-avertv-hd-dvr-video-capture-card/q/loc/101/212576898.html) card is interesting. It has HDMI and a dongle that allows component...

http://www.buy.com/prod/avermedia-avertv-hd-dvr-video-capture-card/q/loc/101/212576898.html

It doesn't allow copyrighted material to be recorded on your PC. Are Football games considered copyrighted? I know the NFL always gives that disclaimer...

[Mr Bigman]

Somewhat.

Football players are pussies though like those panzies from the USF and MMA so yea your fine shawstring.

[CybrSage]

At the end of March/April, both silicondust (makers of the wildly popular HDHomeRun) and ceton (new player in the game) are going to release cablecard tuners which can tune multiple streams.

Silicon dust will release a 2 stream networked version and Ceton will release a 2 stream and a 4 stream internal (pcie) version. Both require an m-cablecard from your provider. Your provider is required to provide this to you for a fee..which is usually less than the fee for the cablebox you already have.

Using Windows 7 only, you can play and record all the channels you subscribe to, even HBO and such. You cannot use pay per view or on demand with it, though. Anything not marked will not have DRM put on it, so anything not marked for DRM will be able to be played on any PC.

Pretty exciting stuff.