Capturing HD from STB

[whurlston]

This device has been discussed in detail over on avsforums in a couple of threads. There is also a model with component capture but the bitrates involved would be too taxing on a typical HTPC drive setup.

[sgilani]

yeah, that's what I've heard as well... would bitrates still be an issue if they implemented something like H.264 and went with hardware encoding and then of course using a H.264 accelerated card for playback? just a thought...

and as for firewire, that's a legal requirement for cable boxes I think, but not for satellite STBs.. so its tough luck for satellite subscribers.

[whurlston]

If they added an H.264 or even an MPEG2 hardware encoder then no, bitrates would not be an issue. But I would not expect that anytime soon.

[sgilani]

eesh, the thought of a PC having to cope with the sudden rush of a 1080i uncompressed stream is enough to send shivers down your spine I think you're right, but hopefully we'll see some sort of hardware encoder solution soon enough.

[earthcitizen]

Ideally it would be nice if the STB could just pass on the compressed signal via firewire or something like that. Like, the STB is there for the handshake w/ CableCo, then it passes the compressed mpeg2 stream to the computer. The computer would treat it just like the mpeg2 stream that comes OTA, making recording a snap.

Does that make sense?

[bogyver]

eesh, the thought of a PC having to cope with the sudden rush of a 1080i uncompressed stream is enough to send shivers down your spine I think you're right, but hopefully we'll see some sort of hardware encoder solution soon enough.

I dont think it will be very long before we do see a on chip encoding system for mpeg 2 or even h264 for component capture. There is no reason why it can be done. Just need to be put together by some one, maybe sub could suggest to some one at hauppauge to get on making one. I bet some one out there makes a chipset that can do it.