hdmi - Recording from your set top box directly to a laptop
2014-07
Gilko
I have a HD set top box and a HD PVR 2 gaming edition plus. The HD set top box has scart and HDMI.
I want to record footage from my set top box directly to my laptop. But I get the message: HD protection.
What I've done is:
- attach set top box with HDMI cable to the HDMI input of the HD PVR.
- attach the HD PVR with HDMI cable to my TV
- attach the HD PVR with USB cable to my laptop
Is there a possibility to record directly to laptop from a set top box?
Maybe if I use a scart to HDMI convertor and connect the set top box with a scart cable to the 'scart to HDMI converter' and then with a HDMI cable to my TV?
André Daniel
"HD protection" means HDCP is in use on the video feed you're trying to record, and it's purpose is to prevent recording (weak protection against Blu-Ray copying, but looks like it didn't make a big difference when we look at how many perfect-quality BD rips are out there on the internet).
One solution would be to try to find modified firmware for your HD PVR that cracks the HDCP protection (I'm pretty sure it has been broken already like every single copy protection attempt made so far), but that's hard and such firmware may not even exist - you may have more luck under Linux if your PVR is supported and you can dump the raw HDMI data and do the actual cracking on the computer itself.
Another solution would be to use SCART as your say, but it is analog and has a very low resolution compared to HDMI - however you want to use a SCART->HDMI converter, these devices most likely exist but they're expensive, it would be way cheaper to buy an analog capture card (equivalent of your HD PVR) and use a passive converter to convert the SCART into something accepted by that capture card (most likely RCA or S-Video).
The best solution would be to completely get rid of the set-top-box and use the computer instead, if it uses standard TV signals like DVB, you can buy a tuner that will allow your computer to act as the set top box and receive the TV signal. If the signal is encrypted it's still possible if your set-top-box uses a conditional access smart card which can be used on a computer without any problems.
bguiz
I recently came across this device: USB Video Grabber, and it got me thinking.
What it does in a nutshell is to take the analogue signals from the composite cables (red, yellow, white) and smush that into a USB input, which presumably is interpreted by some software.
I have a digital TV set top box, a Soniq QMD501H, which I have connected to my pre-digital TV set. This basically takes the RF cable (from antenna) as an input, and outputs to composite cables (red, yellow, white), which I plug into my TV set. If I buy this device, instead of plugging it the component cables into the TV, I can plug them into this device, and plug this device into my computer, and watch/record TV on my computer.
However, what I realised was that this was a rather circuitous route: there's at least two conversions going on, at least one of which is completely unnecessary.
My set top box tells me that the Standard Definition channels are broadcast in MPEG1 and MPEG2, and the High Defintion channels are broadcast in MPEG2 some format it simply calls HD (720p and 1080i).
My computer can understand all of these formats, so I was wondering, why not get these to input directly into my computer?
Is there a device / software that will allow me to bypass the the digital set top box, and get the digital signal directly onto a computer?
If this is not possible, how can I achieve this through my digital set top box?
Setup/device details:
My digital set top box also has a HDMI output, and a RS-232, and Y-Pb-Pr outputs that are currently unused, in addition to the composite cables used by the TV..
My computer only has USB inputs (it's a laptop).
mothis
What you're looking for is a TV Tuner. Many manufacturers make these devices (newegg sells a variety of them).
It seems like you're only looking for something that supports over the air broadcasts (not cable, satellite, etc). If that's the case, almost every card you find will be able to handle this. Just make sure they support digital signals (ATSC), not just analog (NTSC).
William Hilsum
The best thing you can probably do is just buy a TV Capture card such as the ones Hauppauge sell.
You will be able to use a standard signal and your pc will get unaltered digital TV that you can record or do anything you want.
They make everything from analogue tv cards down to High Definition Satellite cards.