OT: Tivo capture--any good?

rwsjr wrote on 11/29/2003, 4:26 AM
I'm thinking about writing to Santa to ask for a Tivo. However, since I don't know anyone who actually owns one, I can't judge the video quality. Maybe someone here can help.

At the "best" setting for recording, how does the video quality of a Tivo compare to VHS, Hi-8 or even DV? I have a Canopus ADVC-100 and if I owned a Tivo, there might be an occasion to capture video from the Tivo, edit out the commercials with Vegas and make a DVD with DVD-A (for personal use, of course).

Has anyone ever tried this? I'm sure I can convert the MPEG coming out of the box to DV--is the quality at comparable or better to if I did the same thing from VHS?

Thanks for any insight.

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 11/29/2003, 5:43 AM
If you have a Tivo combines with a direct TV box, i belive it's a really high quality. Of course if you use an analog out from the Tivo, the quality degrades a little.

They now make a Tivo that has a built in DVD+R recorder in it by Panasonic. That would be good if you want your shows on DVD, but you can't edit out the commercials.
johnmeyer wrote on 11/29/2003, 10:24 AM
The issue with any PVR is how to get the video out of the box and into your computer. Check out this forum for many, many anwers:

AVS Forum
vicmilt wrote on 11/29/2003, 1:16 PM
I just transferred some video that I "TIVO" recorded onto a DV tape for inclusion in a Vegas project.
I used the Canopus ADVC-100 with a YC video cable to connect the two.
It was fine - certainly not horrible - I'd say equivalent to VHS. It was close to the original video transmission.
If you are very picky and need something totally professional, well, the TIVO definitely is compressing the footage. You ain't getting DVD quality, that's for sure.
Spot|DSE wrote on 11/29/2003, 1:36 PM
Thanks for the refresh to the AVS forums, John. It's been a long time since I've been in there.
It's funny that no hacks or piracy issues are allowed to be discussed, but links to same are permitted.
1charmedlife wrote on 11/29/2003, 1:37 PM
I was about to go the TiVo route, and have instead added another dedicated harddrive to my computer and the Hauppauge PVR-350 encoder - which works well and gives me direct access to mpeg2 recordings on the computer (at bitrates of up to 12.0mb/s vbr)... the quality is pretty damn good that way, and I can use virtualdub to transcode to uncompressed .avi's pretty easy.

The setup was a little hairy, but it works well (as long as you diable the Hauppauge card when using Vegas). Plus you don't have to pay any monthly subscription fee (and in my case, since I have a dvd burner too, can easily offload program footage to DVD R).

I would consider that as an option if you're in the position to hook your computer up to the TV for your "tivo" options.

There's a lot more info on this kind of set up at www.htpcnews.com.
farss wrote on 11/29/2003, 1:56 PM
SPOT,
me thinks the piracy issue is going to become very hot in this country. We are into HD DVB and for a few hundred dollars I can buy a tuner card to record the stream straight to HDD. You have actually been able to do this for quite some time but the capability is now becoming common place.

As i understand it the mpeg2 HD stream is encrypted so the theory is that you can only play it back through a HD TV with the decoder in it however over 12 months ago during test transmissions someone I have occassional contact with was asked by one the the TV stations to put a HD demo reel together. The techos at the station were trying to workout how to get the HD material to him but he already had the job done by recording their transmitted signal and decoding it. Needless to say there was a few ashen faces amongst the stations techos and management.