For anyone wanting to record HD copies of our games

[Seinfeld]

this is the cheapest way I've found.

Step 1: DVR the HD version of our game on any standard cable/satellite HD DVR box
Step 2: Buy and install an AVerMedia HD Video Capture card for your PC. These run about $95 on Amazon and are about as simple to install as it gets. Just make certain that you have the required PCI slot available in your PC. The card I got is model # MTVHDDVRR and while it only has an HDMI input, it comes with a "converter" cable that will allow you to use any other input if desired.
Step 3: Connect your DVR to the Video Capture card and record the game with the packaged software program. Bare in mind that a single HD ballgame is going to run about 40-60 GB so you need to have some free space on your hard drive. If you want to make things easy on yourself, you can buy a 2 TB external hard drive for about $80 these days online.
Step 4(Optional): Using MS Movie Manager(free) or any other video editor, manipulate the file however you want. Here, you can cut out commercials, halftime, or zoom in on Jenn Brown. Once you're done, publish the new move to your hard drive and after cutting out the crap, the file should now be around 20-25 GB if done in 720p. Of course, it all depends on how high you want the quality to be.
Step 5Optional) Buy and install any blu-ray burner(decent internal ones now run about $150) and burn the file onto a blu-ray disc.

So all in all, this is about the cheapest way that I know to do it yourself and I can now vouch that the above works flawlessly. I just got done editing the LSU game, and I still can't believe how close Lewis was to breaking the opening kickoff. I seriously think he may have tripped over his own feet.

For anyone wondering why you'd want to go to all this trouble, the answer is that with a video capture card, you're able to create a file that you can manipulate however the hell you want and store it wherever the hell you want. When you get into buying copies of games online or trying to burn a dvd directly from your DVR, you're more than likely going to run into issues due to how they're coded.

Anyway, just thought I'd share for anyone interested.

 

[yakalot]

nt

 

[Dawgzilla]

What kind of format is the burned blu-ray file, or, more importantly, will it play on a standard blu-ray player or just on your computer? (obviously, you can link your computer to your TV, but I'm wondering what all you can do with the disc).

 

[00Dawg]

Whose DVR are you using? I've looked at this card before, and the reports about copy protection issues have made me wary.

 

[Seinfeld]

However, playing it on stand alone blu-ray players seems to be very hit or miss. Mine worked fine on my Sony blu-ray player, but I've read a lot about people having issues depending on anything from the file format to the brand of disc that they used. I've even read where a person burned the exact same file 6 times, but it only worked twice. One thing I do know is that if your blu-ray player isn't already connected to the net, you should do so and update it to the latest firmware. Older ones with older firmware will tend to have more issues (again, according to what I've read).

Bottom line, you're probably going to run into a few speedbumps along the way, but you should be able to get to the right combination eventually with a little research.

 

[Seinfeld]

See, you're not actually transferring the exact file that's on your DVR so it bypasses the protection. You're simply playing it on your computer and then the software makes its own copy of the image while it's playing on your monitor. It's basically the same concept as a VCR, but it's just a little more sophisticated. If you tried to actually rip the file from your DVR and move it to your PC or a dvd, then you're exactly right that you'd have about a 90% chance of running into copy protection issues.

I've been wary about it also, but I thought that this was worth a shot for $95. Also, to answer your first question, I have that fairly new DirectTV HD/DVR box with the touchscreen on the front. Can't remember the brand of the box, but it's the only one I know of that has that touchscreen.

 

[Xenomorph]

/thanks

 

[Seinfeld]

Once the DVR is connected to your PC, you hit play on your remote, turn your video capture software onto record mode, and let it run... There may be a way to speed it up, but that's all I know at this time.

 

[aerodawg.sixpack]

is definitely a big factor when it comes to burning HD content. If your software has variable write speeds, choosing the slowest option will help as well. It is very similar to burning ISO images to dvd's. It is very hit or miss at anything greater than 4x speed with a cheap brand of DVD-R. The success rate is greatly increased for ISOs at 2x speed with higher quality dvd's. I would check into Verbatim discs over Maxell or Memorex that you get from most local stores.

ETA: When I say using the slowest write speed, I mean slowest reasonable. You may find it very unreasonable to write 8gigs of information at 1x speed. But it does increase the success rate.