HD PVR lets you record from your set top box to your PC

[MatrixDweller]

Hauppauge Digital, a developer and manufacturer of analog and digital TV receiver products for personal computers, is now taking orders for their ‘HD PVR’, a USB recording device that can record from component and optical outputs.

The company says customer ordering the devices now can expect to receive them in early May.

According to Hauppage, the HD PVR connects any device that outputs HD signals, typically a high definition cable or satellite set top box, and uses an on-board H.264 hardware encoder to convert high definition TV programs in an ISO standard HD H.264 AVC format in real time.

The connections to the set top boxes are made via component cables, also referred to as ‘YPrPb’ or the red/blue/green connectors on HD set top boxes. A USB cable runs to your computer so that after the conversion process, the resulting file can be stored on your computer.

The HD PVR includes a video player application which allows the recorded TV programs to be played back on a PC screen.

To enable automatic recording of TV programs, the HD PVR recorder includes Hauppauge’s IR Blaster, which controls the channels on most popular cable and satellite TV set top boxes in North America and Europe, and will allow users to schedule the recording of their HD programs.

In addition to high definition ISO standard H.264 recordings, the Hauppauge HD PVR can also create AVCHD recordings, which is the format used on Blu-ray high definition players. As part of the software applications which will be shipped with Hauppauge’s HD encoder, a DVD burning application will be provided which can take AVCHD formatted recordings and burn them onto a conventional DVD disc. These discs can then be played in Blu-ray DVD players.

About 2 hours of Blu-ray HD content can be recorded on a 4.7 GB DVD disk.

The HD PVR can be ordered now for U.S. $249.


Source: Digital Home Canada

[DRB]

Sounds like a pretty cool device to have! I can't help but wonder how the movie studios feel about this potential source of DIY movie copies.

[MatrixDweller]

It won't be 1080p or have lossless audio and would be limited to the compression the cable/sat companies use, but it fills a gap. Now, if you have a DVD burner on your computer, you can swap movies or TV shows with your friends or archive them for future viewing. PVRs are great but HD movies take up so much room that you'd need many many terabytes of hard drive space to be able to save all of your favourites and then your list would still be small.

[evad]

MatrixDweller wrote:

It won't be 1080p or have lossless audio and would be limited to the compression the cable/sat companies use, but it fills a gap. Now, if you have a DVD burner on your computer, you can swap movies or TV shows with your friends or archive them for future viewing. PVRs are great but HD movies take up so much room that you'd need many many terabytes of hard drive space to be able to save all of your favourites and then your list would still be small.

Greetings from Louisiana,
I for one am interested in this "fill a gap". It may be a godsend for the digitally challenged like myself.
Isn't it possible to copy 200 two hour compressed HD files to a one terabyte hard drive?

[MatrixDweller]

Yeah, probably 80-100 (160-200 hours). Video doesn't really compress to well unless you get into lossy compression. I think the big benefit of this device will be that you can watch a movie on cable and record it on your PC. That then gives you the option to edit the commercials out and burn it to a DVD or Bluray disc and share it with your friends...err I mean make a backup copy for your own personal use or stream it to other devices in your home from the hard drive. Drives are getting cheaper too so you could start with a terabyte now and add more when you need more space. PVR, and movie storage in general, seems to be one of the driving forces right now for bigger and better hard drives.