DVD Recorder

[BA-GT]

Hi,
I'm thinking of buying a dvd recorder, does anyone know if i can record straight of foxtel iq to the recorder? If not what about normal foxtel?
Also can u transfer the recording show from the dvd recorder to the computer?

Any help will be greatful

Thanks

[Professor Farnsworth]

Originally Posted by BA-GT

Hi,
I'm thinking of buying a dvd recorder, does anyone know if i can record straight of foxtel iq to the recorder? If not what about normal foxtel?
Also can u transfer the recording show from the dvd recorder to the computer?

Any help will be greatful

Thanks

I used to record foxtel straight from the digital box (not IQ) onto my old Pio DVD HDD Recorder. From memory some channels it won't work with, i think main event and the movie channels, it scrambles the signal so you can't record. The others worked fine though.

As far as transferring the raw video file straight to your computer goes, that's unlikely, but things may have changed since i used to do it.

[Lukeyson]

Aslong as it doesnt have copy protection, as crackersinc said, you can record Foxtel through one of the line inputs on the recorder.
there are very limited amount of recorders that have a connection to PC like USB, havent come across any as of yet on sale in aus yet though.

[BA-GT]

ok thanks was hopin u could just record from a dvd recorder on to a disc, then take out that disc and copy it to ya puter lol..... that would be to easy

[russellw]

I run the Foxtel HD input input into the Aux input on the Panasonic DVD recorder and use DVD RAM discs (which are multiply rewritable) to transfer files to the PC. Note that not all PC DVD drives will read DVD-RAM so you'll need to check that but otherwise it is a straight forward process.

The missing link at the moment is the capability to take the HD native stream as when the disc is burnt it drops back to DVD quality (576). I can use the TViX HD box to do it with the normal broadcast channels and as it is a network capable device I can transfer the captured stream to the PC but that process doesn't work for the Foxtel stream as it has no auxiliary inputs.

It is possible to also transfer the file from the Panasonic unit to an SD memory card but again the transfer process reduces to DVD quality.

Cheers
Russ

[russellw]

It is probably also worth noting that we are about to see the first of the Blu Ray recorders from Hitachi, Sharp and Panasonic that have been available in Japan for some time now but had not been available in our market for a variety of reasons. I don't have detailed specs on the Hitachi but the Panasonic and Sharp seem likely to offer external input capability and although initial pricing will be high they should fall fairly quickly as other vendors join in.

With the format war effectively over (between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) a lot of the uncertainty that had pervaded the market has now disappeared and we can look forward to seeing some of the newer product along with a significant increase in Blu Ray titles. I had always considered the Blu Ray format the technically superior format but just like the old VHS/Beta wars there was never any guarantee that the better format (which Betamax was) would win. In this case it did and the recent announcements from Toshiba (the main proponent of HD-DVD) and Warner (their main studio supporter) have put that battle to an end which can only be good for the consumer.

Cheers
Russ