HD Card?

[davidk21770]

I'm very new to HD recording. I've been using sage with the capture card in my signature for SD for almost a year and it works well for me (although I'd like a little better record quality).

I have Adelphia Cable (Maryland, USA) which should be the same as Comcast and the others.
I want to record my high def channels -- non-premium right now, but maybe later (just broadcast (edit: in hi-def on cable) and a few non-premium movie channels).
I'm looking for high quality recordings, as hassle free as possible.

Any info on what I need specifically, suggestions for capture devices, or pointers to other threads is much appreciated!

Thanks.

[Kimper]

The first thing you need to do is figure out if your cable company is encrypting your local HD broadcasts. Most do not (this may be debatable?).

How to find out if you are 5C encrypted:
1. goto avsforums and search for the thread that talks about HDTV in your metropolitan area. Most major cities/cable providers have a thread. Search in the thread for QAM.

2. If you live in the sticks use a hdtv that can tune qam and search through the channels

You said you wanted to use cable for HD, but you may want to make sure you cannot get OTA signal. If you can get Over the Air then sometimes this is an even nicer picture. You can go here to see how far away and the directions of your OTA broadcast antennas

Whether you go Cable (QAM) or OTA I highly recommend the HDHomerun as a tuner for either/both of these. HDHomerun is discussed here http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20549

[domc]

Just remember that you will not be able to get Discovery HD or any other cable channels (HBO HD) to work with SageTV. There are no cards that will decrypt the HD signel (yet). All the cards that you see that say they are HD are for LOCAL channels over the air/cable tv local only.

You could always get the HD PVR from cable/sat companies though.