A bit confused about DirecTV and HD tuner card support

[Mtlca401]

I have read some posts and it seems that Hauppauge is coming out with a tuner card to capture HD channels from direcTV soon, but I am not sure whether it has come out yet or not. I noticed that the Hauppauge wintv 1800, which is fairly new, has a NTSC/ATSC/QAM. Is this the new card that can capture HD from DirecTV? Is there any way to get HD from DirecTV yet?

[GKusnick]

Not yet. The new device is not the HVR-1800, and it is neither a tuner nor a card. It's an external USB device for encoding HD from component video. So it will work with any HD source that has component video outputs (not just DirecTV) but you will still need a separate HD tuner or cable/satellite STB to use it.

[Mtlca401]

cool thanks,

Any word on when it's coming out or just that it's coming out sometime?

[Fluffdaddy]

From the last reports April/May

[Yooper]

I see that Canopus (www.canopus.com) has just released a firewire box that does HDMI conversion - but not HDCP. This box is designed for professional video folks - $999.

[Mtlca401]

is it possible to get hd channels out of directv using the hauppauge 1800 with s-video? because right now I pick up hd channels with the 500 mce, but it is obviously not hd quality. I was just wondering if the 1800 would look better.

[stanger89]

No, it won't, S/Video is SD.

[Mtlca401]

Originally Posted by stanger89

No, it won't, S/Video is SD.

Ok, I keep getting different answers and opinions everywhere I look.
This post

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...irectv+s-video

says that they have hooked up the directv through s-video on their tuner(doesn't say which one) and the hd channels, although downconverted, look fairly descent, better than SD. I know it won't be HD, but compared to my Hauppauge 500MCE, will it improve picture quality that much if I were to get a NTSC/ATSC tuner and hook it up this way. If so what tuners are recommended? Or is this new one from Hauppauge suppose to fix this HD problem?

Sorry for asking all of this, but it seems that every post that I read never explains anything important like what are the alternative solutions. They just say that there is no possible way to get HD from satellite which I know that but there has to be a way to get close to it.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Mtlca401

Ok, I keep getting different answers and opinions everywhere I look.
This post

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...irectv+s-video

You asked a different question though, in that thread they were asking if downconverted HD would look better than just regular SD, in that case it could. But you asked if downconverted HD would look better through an 1800 than downconverted HD through a PVR 500, there's really nothing to be gained, the 1800 doesn't do anything the 500 can't WRT recording analog inputs.

The way you record HD from satellite is either to get your sat box R5000 modded, or wait for the Hauppauge HD PVR component capture device. The HD PVR is not out yet, will be USB and will have component inputs, don't confuse it with any of the current Hauppauge offerings.