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I have found many resource on Internet but they are all dated from before 2006.

Any people have good information to build a setup to record video from tv to computer?

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5 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

What about Windows Media Center and a TV tuner?

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TV tuner? you mean a card for the PC that can accept tv connexion? – Daok Jul 16 '09 at 2:44
Yes, a tuner selects the channel. – Daniel A. White Jul 16 '09 at 3:13
I have Vista Ultimate on my PC so I could just buy a TV Tuner Card that can accept my cable connection and buy a remote control for the TV Tuner card and I would be fine? – Daok Jul 17 '09 at 13:02
Ensure that the TV tuner is Media Center Ready. Here is one newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116036 – Daniel A. White Jul 17 '09 at 13:04
This is very interesting, I will investigate further more from your link. I would like to be able to use maybe Media Center and maybe be able to switch to something else later if I see that it doesn't fill my need. Let me do some research before I accept this answer :) – Daok Jul 17 '09 at 13:10
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up vote 7 down vote

MythDora (www.mythdora.com, free) is a relatively easy to set up MythTV installation. Mythtv is a complete DVR application, which will allow your PC to function like a really awesome Tivo. Burn it to CD and boot from the CD, it will do most of the rest during installation.

If you just want to record, and you don't care for a remote-control interface, automatic recording, et cetera, you just need a tuner card, and you can probably use the software it came with to tune and record. But since you mentioned DVR/PVR, that probably isn't what you want.

For hardware requirements, see this page.

For hardware, you need a modest (2-3 years old is fine, 512MB RAM is fine) desktop or laptop system, a cheap nVidia graphics card/chip, and one or more ATSC tuner cards, and an IR remote with USB receiver like the Windows MCE remote. And some setup time; while setup does most of the work, you may need to troubleshoot a few things.

Benefits:

  • Cheap
  • Works really well once installed

Drawbacks:

  • Troubleshooting can be slow for Linux newcomers
  • May not be compatible with all hardware, so check compatibility before buying anything.

This is what I use and I am very happy with it. If you have more money than time, I would instead go with a prebuilt Windows 7 Home Premium/Ultimate desktop machine that comes with a remote control.

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up vote 3 down vote

windows media center with tv card or Mythtv

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up vote 2 down vote

I've been thinking about something like this too, to build a PVR that could record the free over-the-air ATSC digital signals. A friend had mentioned the following product to me recently: HD HomeRun

Quote:

One Box, Two Digital Tuners, Anywhere on Your Network
- Watch TV from any computer on your network.
- Record full 1080i broadcast resolution.
- Pause, rewind, fast-forward live TV.
- Schedule and record all your favorite TV shows.
[...]
Compatible With:
- Windows Media Center:
- MCE 2005 (32/64-bit)
- Vista WMC (32/64-bit)
- WMC TV Pack (32/64-bit)
- Windows 7 (32/64-bit)
- Elgato EyeTV - DVR for Mac
- MythTV - DVR for Linux
- SnapStream BeyondTV - DVR for Windows
- SageTV - DVR for Windows/Linux/Mac
[...]

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This machine is over 170$ and still require to have a PC and a DVR software. It doesn't have hard drive too. So in fact this machine is just a "card input" for the cable and redirect it to a network... :\ – Daok Jul 16 '09 at 2:43
Yes, it means any PC on the network can use the tuners. Handy for some people. – Chris W. Rea Jul 16 '09 at 2:54
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up vote 1 down vote

Get a Hauppauge video capture card and GB-PVR. That's probably the cheapest and easiest way to do it.

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