what video capture card to buy to record from DVR?

seanfl wrote on 4/4/2013, 7:20 PM
have a need to record some material from broadcast TV, and then edit inside vegas pro 12. The Verizon Fios dvr box that has the material has hdmi out as well as component. Material was recorded in HD. The HDMI output from the fios dvr is probably protected, so component would need to be used.

What capture card would you suggest?

I've looked at BlackMagic Video recorder:
http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/videorecorder/ ($150 or so)

The pro version for near $500
http://www.amazon.com/Blackmagic-Design-Recorder-Distributes-Websites/dp/B005ABJ0H8/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1365120685&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=blackmagic+video+recorder+pro


Roxio Game capture for $120
http://www.amazon.com/Roxio-Game-Capture-HD-PRO/dp/B008YTAGGW/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

anything that will work well with Vegas used to record the file? If not, I'd like the file created from the capture software to be opened in Vegas. Would like to spend around $200 but will spend more if needed.

Thanks

Sean
Broadcast Voice Over Talent
http://www.seancaldwell.com

Comments

videoITguy wrote on 4/4/2013, 7:50 PM
You may be going places you really don't want to go. Consider the outputs of your chosen broadcast receiver device. 1) You are probably correct the HDMI will have protect. a no go 2) You cannot really record component without getting overly complex.

Consider component devices like BlackMagic Intensity, USB3.0 shuttle etc. price point $220.00 - but an absolute nightmare to configure and BlackMagic does not support VegasPro12 offficially. Not for the faint of heart.

I think your choice of broadcast receiver is a bad choice to begin with.

Here is the simplest was to record off the air - a receiver device like
a cable box or satellite dish will often allow outputs to composite or SVHS connector. You will get high-quality although not defined as high-def...but it will go directly into a low cost capture device including video cards, consumer video cameras. and inexpensive DVD video recorders. Then you should transport your captured stream to VegasPro timeline.

johnmeyer wrote on 4/4/2013, 7:58 PM
My to-do list for 2013 includes building a Home Theater PC, and one of the things it needs to do is to capture the component output from my DVR for exactly the reasons you describe.

I have not yet built this, so I don't have any suggestions based on actual experience. However, here is the resource that will give you (and me) the answer:

AVS Forums - Home Theater PCs

I will be very interested in finding out what you do, and also what advice others have to give. In the meantime, click on the link and start feasting on way too much information.

[edit] Make sure to peruse the "sticky" section on that page. It contains some amazingly detailed specifications for what components to get, and how to build your capture PC. Some of these posts are so detailed, and also are kept so up-to-date that the authors are asking for small contributions to help defray the expense of their time and equipment.

wwaag wrote on 4/4/2013, 8:06 PM
I use a Hauppauge HD PVR for capturing component HD video from a DirecTV receiver. Saves the video as H264 files. Works well. I would NOT recommend doing editing in Vegas. If all you want to do is remove commercials, combine episodes, etc., you would be much better off using VideoReDo TV Suite or TMPGENc's MPEG 4 editor. Both of these will smart-render your avc footage. Vegas will re-render everything.

wwaag

AKA the HappyOtter at https://tools4vegas.com/. System 1: Intel i7-8700k with HD 630 graphics plus an Nvidia RTX4070 graphics card. System 2: Intel i7-3770k with HD 4000 graphics plus an AMD RX550 graphics card. System 3: Laptop. Dell Inspiron Plus 16. Intel i7-11800H, Intel Graphics. Current cameras include Panasonic FZ2500, GoPro Hero11 and Hero8 Black plus a myriad of smartPhone, pocket cameras, video cameras and film cameras going back to the original Nikon S.

john_dennis wrote on 4/5/2013, 12:17 AM
My house was built when having a roof-top antenna was a status symbol. Now, it'll get you into trouble with the home owners association in some areas. I still have a roof-top antenna and receive over the air broadcasts in a major market. The overall transmissions in my flat area are strong and the quality of the video is good. (Content is a different subject.) If your capture subject is broadcast over the air, and you can some how receive the ATSC signal, that would likely be less hassle than dealing with a cable or sattelite company and their hardware. You'll possibly get a better recording if you capture the raw ATSC transport stream without encoding on the fly to a codec besides the MPEG-2 and AC3 used by the network broadcasters.

I have this PCI card and this PCI-Express card in a small system that runs unattended with Beyond TV though the cards come with a rudimentery capture application. I use VideoReDo to do fast cuts without re-encoding the files and push them to a network drive attached to my Blu-ray player for viewing. For time-shifting the process is fast and efficient. The MPEG-2 files open in Vegas Pro once any extra program streams are stripped from the original transport stream.
JJKizak wrote on 4/5/2013, 6:32 AM
The old "My HD" card used to work well but only did 720P in Windows XP.
JJK