Recommendations for capturing Comcast HD

[jherrick]

Long-time happy user here. Server in a closet running XP SP3, 2 HDHRs (for ATSC/ClearQAM stuff) and a PVR-500 (for SD stuff). Clients are 3 MediaMVPs and 1 HD100.

I'm looking for recommendations to capture the *other* HD channels. I assume this would be via capturing the stream from the output on the Comcast STB and something controlling the channels. In the past, I had Mediacom and was lucky enough to have a working serial connection and SD capture using the SVIDEO port on my PVR-500. Looking forward, I'd like any recommendations, since it seems like a purchase or two will need to be made.

My current questions are:

- Is a HD "capture device" required, since I'll just be capturing the stream (component or HDMI, I assume) from the STB? If so, any recommendations?
- Is there a STB I should bug Comcast about to make the serial/USB connection a possibility?
- I'm building for concurrency (family of 6), so I'll probably need a solution for two separate STBs.

Thanks for your help!

Jim

[wayner]

Don't know all the details on Comcast but what you need is the Hauppauge HD-PVR. There are TONS of thread here on this. For channel tuning I would recommend either firewire or a USB-UIRT. I don't know how or if the MVPs can play the HD content from the HD-PVR - you might want to think about upgrading to HD200s.

[jherrick]

Thanks for the reply. I'm okay with the HD-PVR if it's the best device for the job. I just want to be sure that's true *and* that I'll actually be using it appropriately, since I'll be *tuning* with my STB instead of a capture device.

Also, I didn't know firewire could be used to control devices. If so, that sounds pretty cool. I'll dig into that.

As a side note: the MVPs work *nicely* showing HD content, which I'm currently grabbing with the HDHomeruns.

Thanks again.

Jim

[wayner]

The HD-PVRs are the only option for capturing HD cable channels. The MVPs support MPEG-2 HD which is the format for OTA but the HD-PVR encodes to H.264 which requires more horsepower to decode and I don't think it is supported by the MVPs.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by wayner

The MVPs support MPEG-2 HD

The MVPs support SD MPEG-2, not HD, HD MPEG-2 is transcoded like H.264, but as you note, H.264 is a lot more work to transcode and needs a good bit more horsepower.

[UgaData]

I would at least try firewire for both tuning and capture before purchasing an HD-PVR. With firewire your using the STB as your tuner.

You can also try QAM capable tuner for a shorter list of channels.

I am currently using all 3 methods. All three have there pluses and minuses.

Firewire is great if/once you get it working. It can be difficult to get setup. Channels can be 5C'd (blocked, I'm lucky no 5C'd channels). Comcast can turn off the firewire port when reprogramming the STB (not so lucky here, I've had to return the STB for one that has the port turned on. I have yet to talk to anyone at Comcast that acknowledges firewire/1394 exists or what it is).

I don't mean to put down the HD-PVR in any way. When I decided to upgrade to HD recording I called Comcast and ordered the HD package. I then went on-line to order an HD-PVR. Later that afternoon, I picked up the HD STB from Comcast. When I looked at the back of the STB to verify the component connections I saw the 1394/firewire port and had an "I could've had a V8" moment. You could save a few dollars by trying firewire first. Worst case is a couple days waiting for the HD-PVR to be shipped.

When the HD-PVR works it is great. I especially like how it scales the SD channels I record (cartoon network and Animonday on SyFy). However, many users, me included, have had it lock up for some reason. If I rebooted about once a week no problem but if I forgot, it would lock up or just not record when scheduled.

A QAM capable tuner for the ClearQAM channels is a lesser option. You should at least get the same channels that you can get OTA. Until recently I didn't have good enough signal quality for QAM. It would work when I set it up but after a few days there wasn't enough signal to tune some stations in. Things have gotten better since the digital switch over and I have found QAM to be reliable enough to continue using it for recording. You should not expect to record premium channels like HBO or Showtime with QAM (if you can great, just don't go the QAM route with this expectation)

whew! my apologies- I wasn't meaning to go on so long.

- - Silly me, you have an HDHR, you're already doing the QAM thing - -

[reggie14]

I'd like to echo UgaData's comments. Try to get a firewire enabled HD cable box. In my area, that's mainly the Motorola DCT6200. A good way to ask for it (at least in my area) is to ask for the Motorola HD box that doesn't have an HDMI port. The DCH3200 should work. That one does have an HDMI port though (which is fine). To get a firewire box you'll probably have to go to your local Comcast office, ask for what I said above, and, before you agree to take it, check the back of the box for an IEEE1394 (firewire) port.

If you know you're going to want to record HBO-HD, or other premium/movie channels, you'll almost certainly need an HD-PVR. If you just want to record expanded basic HD channels (TNT, USA, ESPN, etc), you might be able to just do firewire tuning and save yourself some money. The HD-PVR isn't a bad option, but I prefer to record the pure mpeg2 stream, rather than recording MPEG-4 through the analog hole. I have two DCT6200 boxes- the one with higher priority records via firewire, and the other records using an HD-PVR.

Edit: And, by the way, stanger is right that the MVPs do not support high-definition mpeg2 video. However, Sage will transcode HD video for viewing on the MVPs, assuming your Sage server's processor is fast enough to do transcoding in real-time. Transcoding HD mpeg2 material should be quite a bit less processor intensive than transcoding HD mpeg4 material. And I still think Sage's transcoder can't handle 1080i HD-PVR recordings.

[UgaData]

F.W.I.W. I have 2 Motorola DCH3200 STBs. I have had both doing firewire recording but currently 1 is firewire and the other is HD-PVR.

I don't subscribe to any premium channels but ....... Whenever I get a new (to me at least) DCH3200 STB from Comcast the prgramming is ... well .... uh ... very open, at least for a few weeks. I have been able to record HBO and Showtime as well as other channels that are not part of the packaging I subscribe to, until Comcast reprograms the STB. I see it as a kind of consolation prize for turning off my firewire ports (by the way, if a STB has a 1394/firewire port on it, the FCC says it is suppose to be functional for the consumer).

[jtors]

Apologies up front if the answer is out there. I have about 50 open tabs on my browser trying to figure out an architecture for my deployment and draft a shopping list.

One sticking point is that I am trying to understand how to integrate my Motorola DCH3200 STB with SageTV server so as to get my HD premium channels. Do I have it correct that I will need an HD-PVR in between the STB and the SageTV server: something like:

DCH3200 >-- component >--> Hauppauge's HD-PVR >--> USB >--> STV Server

Is there a solution to go directly from the DCH3200 to the WinTV HVR-1600 and still get the premium HD channels?

Any direction to threads with basic architectures topologies would be greatly appreciated. I'm happy to read and try and figure out.

[UgaData]

DCH3200 >-- component >--> Hauppauge's HD-PVR >--> USB >--> STV Server

For an HD-PVR setup you are correct.

Is there a solution to go directly from the DCH3200 to the WinTV HVR-1600 and still get the premium HD channels?

Although it is possible to connect the DCH3200 to the HVR1600 directly, it would be using the S-Video/Composite analog ports which means even if your recording an "HD" source it will be down converted to SD.

You could however connect the DCH3200 directly to the SageTV server using a firewire/1394 connection. See my previous post.
DCH3200 >-- (firewire/1394 cable) --< STV server (this presumes a firewire/1394 port is available on the STV server)

There is a very long thread about setting up a firewire connection
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9288

[loonsailor]

I have Comcast in Berkeley, CA. Here, they still have some of the big Motorola 6200 STB's, but by default they are handing out much smaller RNG-110's, which are small plastic boxes made by Pace. The 6200's have only component out, while the RNG-110's have both component and HDMI. The RNG-110 is much smaller, which is very nice, but it doesn't have LED's on the front showing channel info. There's an HD light, but other than that you can't tell which channel it's on, except by watching the video signal.

I have one of each, and am tuning both with firewire. I've gotten two of the RNG's, and firewire control was enabled on both of them without any discussion with comcast.

I run sage on linux, and the rest of this post is probably only of interest if you're also running on linux. If you're on windows, I don't know how to make sage work with the specific STB. All I know is that both STB's are definitely capable of being controlled by firewire.

If you use 6200ch (see the tutorial at http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/down...do=file&id=333), the Mot will work with it unmodified. It will need to be modified slightly for the RNG-100, by adding the vendor and model ID to a list in the source code so that the program recognizes it as an STB that it can control. Once that is done, it works fine.

There is another tuning program which really is better than 6200ch called panelctl, that is included with libavc1394. The current version only works for Mot STB's, and then only for one STB per computer. I've modified it so it will work with any number of STBs, identified by their GUID (sort of a readable serial number), and for any model that follows the standard, and I submitted that back to the libavc1394 maintainers. So, hopefully "real soon now", there will be a firewire control program that will easily work for controlling many different STB's without further modification by the user.