This is another article I did on my technology series of Metro Marquee / [HERE] Magazine. Published in February of 2006.
I did an article a ways back about the advantages to a PVR: pause live TV, no more VHS tapes, no more silly timers. This week, I add one more feature that I have been very anxious to get working. The ability to copy recorded files from your PVR, to your computer.
I have the Motorola HDTV DCT-6208 PVR box that came with my digital cable. This is the most common PVR box available for digital cable subscribers here in New Brunswick. The moment I got this box, I started wondering how I could record stuff from the movie channels, and burn them onto DVD to have later (like we used to with VHS tapes). Thanks to the internet, and a $30 cable, I found a way. How’d I do it? Read on.
First off, the 6208 has a firewire port on it which meant it could be hooked up to a computer. I purchased a cable for about $30 that matched the end on the box, and the end on my computer. I plugged the device in and magically, Windows detected the box but had no drivers. Thanks to the folks from www.avsforum.com, I found drivers, as well as software to do the recording. It wasn’t quite that simple though.
The guide I found online was very easy to read but it’s a generic guide meant for any cable company. The first thing I did was hook the box up and try to record something. The problem was I had no TV to see what the PVR was giving for output so I just tried changing different channels to see what would record. This resulted in a bunch of 0 byte Mpeg files.
The second time around, I hooked the video out of the PVR to my TV tuner on my PC and discovered the problem. No channels and no PVR menus are available unless the box has a cable signal coming in. I’m assuming that it receives some sort of control signal from the cable provider that gives the box its menus and functionality. So, I plugged my cable signal into the 6208 and voila. I had my PVR menu, and the recording was easier than blinking my eye.
A piece of software called CapDVHS recognizes the PVR as a capture device and allows you to record Mpeg files directly to your system from the machine. You can’t use standard capture software because of the special type of signal coming off the PVR but you can record the data stream with CapDVHS easily. You can’t play them back on that software but ATI Media Player and Nero both played the Mpegs fine. A single minute of video was about 34MB in size so a two hour movie would be over 4 gigs.
Why bother with all this? If you like to watch movies and your PVR gets filled up quickly, this is a great way to archive some of your favorite movies and shows. Plus, it’s all pure digital so you won’t have old VHS tapes gathering dust.