Hi There, I'm trying to find out if it's possible to record a TV Show/TV Movie to my Laptop. I know I can use my TV as a display for my PC, shared or extended desktop but I don't know how to basically reverse the process so I can use my laptop as a TV. There is a really good movie that is going to be on TV next month and I would love to be able to record it. I have a Sanyo 52" Plasma with cable TV hooked up to it. It has a DVDR from comcast also, so I can record live TV and all but I want to be able to have the movie on my hard drive so I can bring it to a friends or burn it to a DVD. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Need more info. What are the specs of your laptop? I can tell you that it has to be capable of playing hi-def video, which means it needs a hi-def video card. Hi-def video means hi-def audio and a sound card that would handle it. If your system can't handle hi-def, you'll notice skipping and freezing and you'll blame the video.
Yeah it is able to handle HD it can play BluRay DVDs and I downloaded and watch HD movies on it quite often. The laptop is a HP Pavilion dv7-1135nr Entertainment Notebook PC it has an AMD Turion X2 processor, 4GBs Ram, 4 USSB ports, 1 HDMI, and a Ethernet port. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium and it's a 32 bit operating system. I believe that's about it.
You should have no problem accomplishing your goal. It will do pretty much whatever you want. You simply be using it as a DVR.
Can you explain to me how I go about doing it? I currently have comcast cable and I use their cable box/DVR to watch HDTV. I need to know how I get the laptop to record what is being watched on TV or whatever is being played by the box. I tried to plug in the HDMI cable from the cable box to my laptop but it did nothing at all. Someone told me I needed a TV tuner for my laptop to be able to do this. I was hoping I didn't. I'm at a loss right now. Any help would be appreciated.
Perhaps I should have asked if you have video/audio in. You need that in order to record. There are a number of ways to accomplish this. Here's a link that will help you. http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to-your-tv/ I just looked the specs for your machine. You've got all you need to do what you want. The only reason you'd need a TV Tuner is if you're trying to watch live TV from your laptop. You don't need it to record TV. You do need software that will capture the audio/video from your TV.
Thanks a bunch for the link to all that great info. I still couldn't find any instructions on how I can get the TV images to show up on my lap top or how I can record anything from my TV to my lap top. I guess I'll keep reading but so far all I've seen is posts saying I need a TV tuner. It just seems that if I could just somehow reverse what the HDMI cable is doing right now I should be able to do it. Because right now the HDMI cable just turns my TV into an extended desktop and it works like another monitor.
If it's not too much trouble, send me a list of applicable software you have regarding audio/video. I won't let this go until you're able to accomplish what you want. There should be no reason why you can't record HDTV. You've got a multi-interface port, which means in/out audio and video but if there's no video capure app you'll need that. I forgot to mention..I use Nero. You can record directlly to the drive or prep to burn to dvd media and I don't have a TV card. I used to have one from Hauppauge or however it's spelled but it took a dump after getting more than my money's worth out of it. I use an external interface from K-World because I don't have an HDMI port. It's served me well.
Awesome!! I just checked out that link and there is everything I need to do it all explained. Thanks a bunch. I'll let y'all know how it goes once I've tried it out. Thanks again.
Hey Flashcom, you successful with your recording endevor? I'm lookin to do same cept I dont have hdmi input on laptop. I have charter and would like to record what i'm watching, movies or tv, to hard drive or eventually to ipod or phone for later viewing. I can view computer screen on my tv, but i cant seem to do it the other way. Let me know how youre doing with this if youre still around. Thanks...
