Capturing tv programmes, selecting favourites and reviewing with minimum loss of quality

My dream is to
(a) capture classical music TV programmes - analogue or HD;
(b) select favourite movements (call it "editing");
(c) download selections to portable hard disk and, finally,
(d) enjoy selections on TV screen through a streamer with a minimum or no loss of quality (that is, compared to the original transmissions).

In other words, creating a personal calssical music library (i.e., no film production, special editing or effects).

I have tried a well known PVR tv card, but got nowhere near the original transmission.

My questions:
1. Is tv card the only solution?
2. What are the minimum technical requirements/specifications of any capture device for solving my problem?
3. Recommendations re specific products will be most helpful.

Presently, I am recording such programmes with DVD recorder, download the DVD's to PC and select favourites with VideoReDo software. Evidently, there is a loss of quality there, even compared to the standard tuners/recorders supplied by the cable companies.

 

You connected the cablebox to the TV card and DVD recorder? How?
BY S-video?

Explain the whole chain in a little more detail.

 

I use a Hauppauge capture card for OTA TV.
The files are .tp (a variant of .ts that is used by Beyond TV).
Using MPEG Video Wizard, I can edit the files and save in the same format (I don't elect to save to DVD specs).

The edited file is either transferred to an external HDD or USB stick and plugged into a WD TV media player thence over the HDMI port to the TV.

Note that I got my Womble MPEG Video Wizard on a day when it was being given away - I'm not sure if it's the same program that you have.

 

Thanks davexnet,
I said that currently, I use DVD recorder, but since quality is lost down the road, I want to have a direct TV-computer connection via, say, a PVR card, thus forgoing the DVD recorder phase. Tried the Hauppauge PVR 150 and got poor results.
The thing is that camparison of quality is very easy, for example, by recording the same piece to the stasndard tuner and through S-video to the PVR card; and mind you, I am told by the seller that capturing through his card should produce a better quality than the standard tuner/recorder.

 

I'm still not sure what you're comparing, nor what the problem actually is.

Are you comparing analog capture (through the PVR tuner input) Vs. S-video input through
the card?

Nor do I understand what you mean when you say quality is lost "down the road".
*You* might know what you mean, but you're not communicating it very well.

 

Sorry, I am not too familiar with the technical aspects and language. Let us forget the DVD Recorder path and compare between the following three options:

1. Watching TV live (TV is full HD, but not the DTA).
2. Recording TV programmes and playing back through the standard equipment (DTA plus hard disk) supplied by the cable companies (I would happily settle with their playback quality, but no possibility of editing, let alone creating a library);
3. Analogue capturing to the PC hard disk through S-video cable, from the digital television adapter to Hauppauge card (no HD capacity), and playing back to the TV screen through a streamer (capturing is carried out with the card's highest available quality, namely, 12 megabit per second).

My purpose, as I said, is to watch/listen from a hard disk library, created on the basis of (an improved) option no. 3 above, as if watching live (no. 1).

Now, in the tests I have conducted I could physically compare 2 and 3 by simultaneously recording the same programme through the DTA (no. 2) and the capturing card (no. 3), and then, alternately playing back and compare.

It is a common knowledge (also my own impression) that no. 2 is very slightly, almost imperceptibly, inferior to 1 (this is stated even by the cable companies), but as for no. 3, I found it significantly inferior to 2.

 

Well I take your cable companies word for it, if that's what they say.
On my home cable box + built in harddrive, the picture is identical since
all it does is record the digital stream from the cable as-is.

How is yours degraded? is it not a digital signal ?

I can understand that there would be some loss of quality in(3). How much loss is there?
Does it look bad when viewed on the PC? Is it only bad when streamed to the TV?
Does the "streamer" degrade the signal further?

 

As I said, I would be happy to get the same results as the palyback of my cable box. Otherwise, I know very little about the technical aspects (is not rate of compression playing a role there?).

How much loss is there in 3? I cannot quantify, but suffice it to say that given the results of my tests, I would unhesitatingly return to the burdensome path of DVD recording, copying to the PC, etc. (I think I have a good PC screen but then, everything looks bad in full screen mode, so that I cannot tell specifically about option 3).

Nonetheless, I would imagine that there are better cards, and if so, what should be the minimum technical requirements, e.g., resolution (and by the way, would you know of software programmes, instead of cards, for that purpose).

As for my streamer (a TVX HD M-6600), I have a very simple test, namely, viewing a recorded DVD through a DVD palyer and the same contens through the streamer. To my eyes, there is no difference in quality (anyway, I should point out that option 2 is much better than the DVD-recording one).

 

Well aren't you connecting an external HDD to the streamer and playing that?
If That's the case, the files on the HDD should be played as-in. A little different
compared to the situation where you may be sending data to the box via wifi or ethernet -
I'm pretty sure that's where degredation can creep in- but your apparently not
doing that.
How about this?
Post a 6 or 7 second clip of your s-video/analog capture and let me take a look?
Some flle hosting site like mediafire.com is a good place to put it.
Upload it and put the URL in here.

 

Thanks. Will do.

The piece is here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?oyttjgnwtzz
Exactly: after copying a piece to the external HDD i am connecting it(USB) to the streamer. I dont quite understand, though, what "played as-in" means.

 

Thanks!
1. What precisely Huappauge card are you using?
2. Can you tell the difference between live TV quality and your end product (i.e., viewing the same piece via the HDMI connection?

 

Earlier today I inserted the URL. The file cannot be opened with Windows MediaPlayer. I opened it with PowerDVD, or VidepReDo or Media Player Classic.

 

This is an older card that uses a PCI slot.

WinTV which is bundled with it, saves the recording in mpeg2 format.
As I mentioned, I use BeyondTV which saves as .tp format - that program has an option of converting these files to AVI (scheduled for off hours).

I can't see a difference between the mpeg2 and the tp files.

For more up-to-date info about TV cards, try:
http://www.videohelp.com/capturecards
and one of the forums at the sight for opinions.




http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1600.html


Edited to show mpeg2

 

"played as-in" is a typo and should be "played as-is".
Re: your clip -
At first glance it looks jerky and the movements seem unnatural. Is this what you are
referring to? I've got to move it to a second PC which is better equipped
perhaps I'll have more info later.

 

1. Indeed, I play it as-is.
2. On my PC it does not look jerky and movement is smooth, that is, after downloading from the URL. Only the quality is not satisfactory, compared to playback from the cable box.
3. I am told by a friend that so long as I dont have HD cable box, there is no chance of getting better quality even with a better card, say, Hauappauge HD PVR.

 

I have SD/HD digital cable source. In my bedroom, where the PC is,
I have an older cable box, it's SD only.

In my PC I've an Avermedia tuner/capture card, 2 tuner inputs, analog and digital
and one s-video/composite input. On the cable itself, almost all of the digital
channels are scrambled, but it does carry (for some old legal requirement) all the
local (to my area) channels in clear analog format. I can split my cable and plug
it into my tuner analog input. The quality on the PC when viewing /recording those
channel varies from terrible to fair. The picture often seems smeared and generally
grungy. (How much of that is the signal and how much due to the card I don't know)
Plugged into my tuners digital input I have an outdoor antenna picking up High quality
720p and 1080i local channels (I'm in Los Angeles).

However, an S-video cable strung from cable box to a VCR, then VCR to the S-video
input on the PC tuner yields results that are good to very good. I can record from
the tape, or from the cable signal. These are the digital signals that the cable box
is tuning into. They're not HD, but they are good quality.

It's possible your card is degrading the s-video sigal; it does have to do the analog
to digital conversion. Have you tried a good quality S-video cable?

Check out attars link, some knowledgeable people there.