Recording HD with SageTV...

[cipher]

Is it accurate to say that the only HD recordable with a HD PVR card in my HTPC is OTA? If so, why wouldn't hooking up my HD DirecTV receiver to one of these cards work? Thanks

[sleonard]

Partially correct. OTA cards are the only supported method of recording HD and there is no physical way to connect a cable/sat box to one of these cards.

OTOH, there is an unsupported way to connect a cable box to your PC via firewire but this method is limited to the channels that are not encrypted by the cable company. See the long thread in the hardware forum topic for more info.

For Sat there is a very expensive way to use firewire. Certain sat boxes can be modified by a third party (369time? or something like that) for about $1000 per box and adds an unencrypted firewire port to the box.

No other methods are available at this time to my knowledge.

[cipher]

Thanks for the info. If they can record OTA, why wouldn't they just add input via HDMI or component and bypass the tuner? (similar to coax/composite/s-video input on SD cards) Are HDMI or component out encrypted?

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by cipher

Thanks for the info. If they can record OTA, why wouldn't they just add input via HDMI or component and bypass the tuner? (similar to coax/composite/s-video input on SD cards) Are HDMI or component out encrypted?

Not sure about the encryption, but the HDMI signal is uncompressed and you would not want to handle uncompressed HD signal.

[Kanati]

some of the hi def transport streams I've seen for download look like 90 gig or more for an hour of video. Definitely don't want to mess with uncompressed HD.

[blade]

Not to mention the Sat/Cable providers, networks, studios, etc... do not want you to be able to do it.

It's not that they can't come up with something. Just that the industry doesn't want it to be possible. Networks make their money from advertisement. Personally I haven't watched a commercial since I setup my Sage system. Common sense says that the networks won't like that trend.

Many shows (if not almost all) try to sell DVD copies of previous seasons, if people can record these shows in HiDef and archive them then that cuts into the profit they can make off DVD sales.

If you look at it from the business side it's not hard to see why there is so much opposition to consumers being able to digitally record shows and archive them for as long as they choose.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by cipher

Thanks for the info. If they can record OTA, why wouldn't they just add input via HDMI or component and bypass the tuner? (similar to coax/composite/s-video input on SD cards) Are HDMI or component out encrypted?

Nothing* can record that amount of data, uncompressed HD is 1.5Gbps. OTA HD is a 19.4Mbps compressed datastream.

That plus HDMI can be encrypted.

*nothing < about $2000.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by blade

Not to mention the Sat/Cable providers, networks, studios, etc... do not want you to be able to do it.

It's not that they can't come up with something. Just that the industry doesn't want it to be possible. Networks make their money from advertisement. Personally I haven't watched a commercial since I setup my Sage system. Common sense says that the networks won't like that trend.

Many shows (if not almost all) try to sell DVD copies of previous seasons, if people can record these shows in HiDef and archive them then that cuts into the profit they can make off DVD sales.

If you look at it from the business side it's not hard to see why there is so much opposition to consumers being able to digitally record shows and archive them for as long as they choose.

It has relatively little to do with fear of not watching commercials, or archiving for personal use. It has everything to do with fear of "Napster for video", founded or not.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Kanati

some of the hi def transport streams I've seen for download look like 90 gig or more for an hour of video. Definitely don't want to mess with uncompressed HD.

HD transport streams (broadcast at least) are about 9GB/hour. Uncompressed HD would be about 600GB/hour.

[Jesse]

HD transport streams (broadcast at least) are about 9GB/hour. Uncompressed HD would be about 600GB/hour.

I keep thinking, "Man, storage space is sure getting cheap." Those numbers sort of put that in a different light......

Jesse

[blade]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It has relatively little to do with fear of not watching commercials, or archiving for personal use. It has everything to do with fear of "Napster for video", founded or not.

I agree "napster for video" is their greatest fear for now, but it all stems from the fear of lost advertising revenue. They know the majority of people aren't recording and editing out commercials at the moment. Right now the threat of people downloading content that's already been edited is of greater concern. As more and more people get PVR's and commercial editing becomes more common the TV industry's fears will shift.

Think about why they don't want you to be able to download shows from the internet.

Studios want to sell the rights to air their shows to the networks and sell copies to consumers via DVD.

The networks want to sell airtime to advertisers. When/if a large enough number of people no longer watch commercials (either from editing them out or downloading already edited shows) then advertising revenues will start to decline. Once this happens the networks will no longer be willing/able to pay as much to the studios.

The cable/sat companies are afraid they'll lose subscribers due to shows being available on the net.

The television industry is a business, the only reason they care about protecting their content is to preserve their ability to generate revenue. The entire industry is built around advertising and PVR's and digital recording is threatening their business model.