up vote 2 down vote favorite
1
share [g+] share [fb]

Situation

We have about 60 episodes of "The Little Einsteins" saved on our cable DVR, a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD. My daughter loves the show and I am terrified that some freak accident will wipe out our hard-earned collection. So I would like to digitize the copies to a PC for backup. It would also be nice to throw them on a video iPod for trips.

Desired solution

I would ideally like to be able to encode the videos in 1080i. Obviously best case would be to somehow do a pure digital copy, but I'm resigned to the fact that I will probably have to play the episodes one-by-one and do an analog capture. I'm willing to spend up to a few hundred dollars on a solution.

What I've looked at already

So, I thought this would be an ideal quesiton to pose to the SuperUser community: what are some affordable ways to liberate the high-def content from a cable company's DVR?

link|improve this question
40% accept rate
I really really really doubt that Litte Einsteins are broadcast in 1080i. So saving it in that format will only be a waste of space. Cartoons are usually highly compressible and should look fine in lower resolutions. – Nifle Aug 9 '09 at 8:37
We get DisneyHD and regular old Disney. The stuff broadcast on the non-HD Disney channel looks like complete crap. I agree with you, cartoons should not require 1080i, but compared to the compressed garbage being streamed down the non-HD channels, it's a huge difference. – Portman Aug 10 '09 at 2:31
Interesting. I suppose its true what they say. Once you go HD there is no turning back. – Nifle Aug 10 '09 at 7:42
Note that the Blacmagic card does run on windows. **Intensity features the latest HDMI technology for the highest quality capture and playback on Windows™ or Mac OS X™ computers. ** – Nifle Aug 10 '09 at 7:48
I am in the same position - nearing 95% full on the DVR. Didnt want to create a duplicate question - all I want to do is offload the shows I recorded to a DVD for storage and playback at a later time, pretty much like we used to be able to do with a VCR. Doesnt have to be HD - just a recorded copy so I can delete everything off the DVR and..... start that process over again I suppose.. – Optimal Solutions Aug 24 '09 at 2:23
show 1 more comment
feedback

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

This link says that you should have an external SATA connection. If you hook up a hdd to that you can copy your data to that for backup (or later connect it to your computer for conversion).

link|improve this answer
Unfortunately, my cable box runs "PASSPORT", not "SARA", so the eSATA port is deactivated. wkblog.com/tivo/2007/09/… – Portman Aug 10 '09 at 2:29
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.