G+_Jason Perry Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Starting to think of building a rack mount rig to record and play back video. Any suggestions on cards for either coax or HDMI inputs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Benjamin Webb Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 If it has HDCP recording on HDMI is a no go. hauppauge is the way to go for clear qam and over the air transmissions. If you want to record on a cablecard look at a HDHomerun Prime although encrypted content recording is currently windows 7 only. You can watch live encrypted tv with an Android Device like FireTV (not the stick). As for encryptions it should only be premium channels like HBO but your mileage may vary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Perry Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 Thanks Benjamin Webb, just so you know I have been told there are ways to scrub the HDCP from HDMI. I am thinking of incorporating something from Hauppauge and HDHomerun, I haven't played with either yet and am open to feedback on what ones people recommend. I think my biggest head scratcher is finding the card I want to accept HDMI. My current plan is to run MythTV or a flavour of it, and copy everything over to my Synology NAS. I also want to dump all my home videos on it and run handbreak to convert them from AVCHD to MP4 or something else a little more playable. How things are moving from one to the next is still yet to be determined. Specs of the box are also yet to be determined. Looking at this project seems to be a little overwhelming when you start to think about where should go next after it is up and running, and which box should do what, or even how should everything work together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Benjamin Webb Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Yes you can remove HDCP but there is not much point. For the most part this are 4 types of media Live TV Either OTA or Cablecard Physical Media Blu-ray, DVD Streaming Netflix, Hulu Gaming Xbone, PS4 etc Recording Cable LiveTV though HDMI makes no sense as you would need to manually set up recording timing as well as have an IR blaster on your cable box to change channels. Physical is easier and faster to rip to a computer directly and gaming has no HDCP. So only use case would be manually archiving online streams or 4k blu ray. It is possible with a HD Fury and a HDMI capture device but the cost is prohibitively expensive and even more so for 4k. What kind of use case are you going for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Perry Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 I want to centralize all my A/V equipment and do away with anything that is unnecessary. I have satellite tv so I want to pass the HDMI through to rerecord what's on my PVR so I can view it on other devices, and, when my PVR crashes and deletes all my kids shows I still have them. Then I want to start incprporating other sources like OTA for local channels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Benjamin Webb Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Yeah look for HDPVR2 from hauppauge and find a HDMI splitter that magically removes HDCP as a accidental feature. I prefer mythtv on linux but it is a bear to set up. IR blasters are not fun either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Perry Posted March 11, 2016 Author Share Posted March 11, 2016 Benjamin Webb?, is one of the variants, such as mythbuntu, any better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Benjamin Webb Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Mythbuntu is nice as everything is ready to go but the configuration of mythtv is not fun especially if you want it to stream to other devices. Look at NextPVR for windows as the drivers for the HD-PVR2 are alpha at best and I still can't find support listed for it in mythtv. They do sometimes have reliability issues so keep the thing well ventilated as well. Most other options tend to be extremely expensive so people put up with the issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Perry Posted March 13, 2016 Author Share Posted March 13, 2016 Benjamin Webb?, what minimum specs would you recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Benjamin Webb Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Well the HDPVR does all hardware encoding work so your only requirements are runs windows and has big hard drive. I would count on about 5 gig/hr for recording TV (will probably be a bit lower for you as you are h.264 to my mpeg2). It's up to you how many hours you want to hold. If you transcode after you can save even more space. If you transcode I suggest a quad core at a minimum. Intel has better power management but AMD is cheap. Transcoding may not be an option if you need this thing quiet. I would run the integrated and see how it goes first but I prefer cheap nvidia cards for playback as they can handle overscan adjustment the best. I usually get a cheap $50 GT series. For 1080P a 210GT or better is fine. Might have to go newer as the 210 is very old. As for 4K there is currently no H.265 acceleration and nothing to record it but you may want to look at intels latest gen onboard graphics as they may support it for playback at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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