Recording from NTL onto laptop hard drive

Bossie · 02-05-2005, 13:12

Hi experts,

Can anyone tell me if there is a FAQ somewhere to ease me through the process of recodring from my NTL digital service onto a laptop hard drive?

Ideally, I'd love to know what hardware I would need to support this, and if anyone has any 'in the know' tips to help avoid the inevitable 'features' that i am bound to encounter in setting up the configuration.

Thanks in advance.

Neilm · 02-05-2005, 13:37

You will need at least an external TV Tuner system which has RCA sockets for auxillary input. These all have a built-in tuner with co-ax input, but none can take a raw Cable Digital signal, due to the encryption process.

You choice will be between software, and hardware encoding TV Tuners. S/W encoders record in Windows Media Video format, but need a lot of processor power. H/W encoders use MPEG2 format, and because the encoding is done in a chip on the tuner, the processor load is low.

I use a Hauppauge WINTv USB2 tuner. This does need an external power supply (ie it can't take power from the USB port of the PC) but the results are excellent overall.

If you don't have USB 2, or don't want an externally powered device, then the WINTV USB might suffice, being a software encoder. There are other similar devices available. I can give more advice if needed!

Bossie · 02-05-2005, 13:54

Hi Neil,

Thanks for your reply.

In terms of providing an input to the external tuner, would I use the analogue output from the STB or should something else be used?

Graham M · 02-05-2005, 13:55

A Scart->RCA Phono Convertor would make a better job.

02-05-2005, 16:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeph

A Scart->RCA Phono Convertor would make a better job.

Agreed ,something like this would do the job
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=62010

And

to the site Bossie and neilm

paulyoung666 · 02-05-2005, 17:09

1 thing for you consider Bossie , recording video can take up massive amounts of space on a hdd , as you mentioned you are using a laptop you may run into space problems very quickly , and a

from me as well

Neilm · 02-05-2005, 21:03

Thanks for the welcome Guys!

Bossie: as the previous answers said, the Scart to RCA cable is a good idea. You can get them online, or from the likes of Currys, who actually do some very good ones.

The only drawback of this is that using it as a personal video recorder is difficult, as you would need another piece of kit to switch channels on the STB, but at the moment, for you with a laptop, an external tuner is the only answer (even with a PCI card in a desktop PC, you would still have to use the auxilliary inputs for anything other than the basic "passthrough" channels; and the quality of NTL's passthrough leaves a lot to be desired in many areas)

MPEG2 is hard on the HDD- though you can generally select the quality in software. The default quality for Hauppauge tuners is about 3Gb per hour of recording. If you are good about archiving to DVD, then it may not be a problem, but shows do tend to accumulate! You can also use software to transcode the MGEG2 video to WMV, which cuts the file size by about two thirds.

bmxbandit · 02-05-2005, 21:48

if the laptop is up to it (i.e.pretty new), you may be able to record and compress on the fly.

i have an xp2000+ and an old hauppage card, can record and compress to divx, full resolution@4mbit, never misses a frame... best to sort the audio later though.

in reality, 4mbit is far more than you need so shouldnt take up more than about 1.5 gig an hour.