Our digital cable box will record, but there is no VCR function that would allow a person to burn a disc and take it to a friends house. I do not like this. I suppose I could blow the dust off my VCR and hook it between the box and the TV, but that seems kinda crude. What does a guy need to hook his computer up there to...record? download?...the video? Can it be done with common hand tools and readily available ingredients? Will the FBI show up on my doorstep and take me away to video prison?
Well, the issue is that the cable companies encrypt the signal coming from the wall into the box, so you'd have to capture the signal between the box and the TV.
If you're trying to watch/record something in HD, you have to use HDMI with HDCP (encryption between the box/TV) enabled on the device the box is connected to, or it won't display the content. I'm not aware of any HDCP capable DVR's available on the market. If they are out there, they aren't cheap.
Blu-Ray/HD-DVD's follow the same path. If you don't have functional HDCP you don't get the whizzy picture, you get picture with lower resolution.
For Standard Definition TV signals, you'd be fine with hooking a DVR/VCR between the TV/Cable Box.
You'd still have to set the cable box to the proper channel to record the content and you couldn't watch anything else on that box until the recording was finished.
Its a racket where they control the content that you're paying to use. So this is why so many are moving to leveraging web-streaming (Hulu, Netflix, Various channel websites) or NetFlix DVD's, buying the shows directly or illegally downloading via bittorrent to watch the content when/where they want to.
Can a guy buy a digital recording device that burns direct to DVD, like a VCR used to do? HD isn't a problem either way- I grew up on a farm 60 miles from the nearest channel, watching through the snow, and the broadcast is not in HD.
There are inexpensive usb video capture devices out there. I got one for $35 bucks... It uses either s-video or composite (single yellow rca) and stereo rca's and converts it to usb and uses the microphone input for audio. On the software end I use Windows Movie Maker that came with my xp operating system, because it was there...
Other than that recording is pretty much the same as with a vcr. Set up your program, hit record, let it play, push stop etc.
Once it's saved on your hard drive you can do what you want with it.
later, matt
Lots of options on google shopping for DVR, though many seem geared to recording security footage (which would still work, just no tuner capacity)
Actually you can get cable card tuners that accept a decryption card that your cable company is supposed to supply you with if you ask - it's usually not very well advertised.
With one of those tuner cards, you can build yourself a media PC to do the recording and actually get your recordings off the device (novel concept, eh?). The main issue is usually that they're missing the back channel so certain features the cable box supports like an EPG won' work with a cable card tuner.
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