Digital recorder for TV? Hopeless!

D

David W. Richardson

Chapelgrove Films
I cannot fathom why I can connect my digital cable box from Time Warner Cable to my ancient VHS VCR and record just fine -- whatever channel is on the TV, I can record. But there apparently isn't a single digital (DVR-type) device on the market in the U.S. that can do the same thing.

Mind you, I only have the very simple digital converter box that comes with Time Warner's 'Standard Cable'. But if I can see a channel on my TV, I can record it on my VCR. So why on earth can't someone make a digital recorder that can do the same thing my VCR can do? Even if it only records in standard definition, that's no worse than what I have now and I can stop using tapes.

But all I can find are things that take an over-the-air digital signal from an antenna and convert it to analog. I had hoped the RCA DTA880 might be able to do the trick, but no such luck. Oh, it will take an over-the-air HD signal and record that just fine -- but a signal from my cable box? Apparently not.

Of course, I could buy a TiVo, pay the monthly fee, and let Microsoft have a record of everything I watch. No thank you.
 
The problem you're going to run into is that everyone has everything locked-down with copyright protection, which is easier now than ever for rights holders, manufacturers, etc., because of HDMI and HDCP. The analog SD signal you're feeding your old analog VHS VCR isn't on a digital, two-way HDMI cable with HDCP and both devices talking to each other and one telling the other it can't do something.

If you have a nanoFlash, you can try that. I've seen it work in the past.
 
There's been a lot of commotion regarding this from all sides lately. The cable companies are resisting it. The entertainment companies are of two minds about it and the IT/electronic companies are behind it. The US Congress is sort of siding with the IT/electronics.

Of course, then there's this.

https://www.mythtv.org/detail/mythtv
 
Run&Gun said:
The problem you're going to run into is that everyone has everything locked-down with copyright protection, which is easier now than ever for rights holders, manufacturers, etc., because of HDMI and HDCP. The analog SD signal you're feeding your old analog VHS VCR isn't on a digital, two-way HDMI cable with HDCP and both devices talking to each other and one telling the other it can't do something.

If you have a nanoFlash, you can try that. I've seen it work in the past.
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But I'm perfectly okay with recording an analog signal to a digital recorder. That is to say, I'm fine with recording in SD rather than HD, which is what my VCR does now. I'm just trying to eliminate having to use tapes.

Here's my chain currently. The cable from the wall goes into my cable box. The box has two outputs -- one is HDMI, the other coaxial. I connect the HDMI to my TV and I'm good to go. I connect the coax to the input on my VCR. The output (coax) from my VCR goes into the coax input on my TV.

All channel changing is done with the box. The VCR remains set to channel 4, so whatever channel is coming out of the cable box to the TV is the only one I can record. To play back, I switch the TV's input from "HDMI" to "TV" (which is for the coax input). With it set to TV, I can either watch TV channels (at lower resolution) or I can watch the VCR tape.

So obviously the HDMI output from the cable box is digital HD and the coax output is analog SD -- otherwise the VCR wouldn't recognize it. Right?

Now here's the thing. The RCA DTA880 that I bought ($50 at Walmart) touts itself as a 'Digital Converter Box With Recording'. Clearly that means it's going to take a digital signal (from a digital antenna, over-the-air digital broadcasts) and convert it to analog so it can be used with older non-digital TV's. For input, it has a coax connector. It has 3 different outputs -- HDMI, coax, and composite (RCA).

I assume the coax and composite outputs are analog and the HDMI output is digital (pass-through).

So it seems like I ought to be able to take the DTA880 and put it in place of my VCR. But I guess the problem is I'm getting an analog -- not digital -- output from my cable box going into the coax input on the DTA880, and that's not going to work -- it needs a digital input. I can't use it in place of my cable box -- I'm sure that Time Warner has scrambling to prevent that.

So what I need is a device just like the DTA880, but which can accept an analog signal and record it to a flash drive, and later play that recording over the TV. That doesn't sound so hard, right?
 
I sometimes have to pull material off-air from the DVR for demo reel purposes (as well as off Blu-rays) and the best workaround I've found is to use a Blackmagic Intensity capture device. I have their older Intensity Extreme but looks to have been replaced by the Intensity Shuttle, even less expensive) using the component video outputs of the DVR or Bluray. This will add a conversion from digital to analog and back to digital, but the visual difference is minimal for my intended purpose (and certainly the OP's). The one issue I've seen is that it will add some ugly interlacing artifacts, but those can be cleaned up. It's a bit of a strange workaround and certainly not as easy as a VCR interface, but it gets it done.
 
CharlesPapert said:
I sometimes have to pull material off-air from the DVR for demo reel purposes (as well as off Blu-rays) and the best workaround I've found is to use a Blackmagic Intensity capture device. I have their older Intensity Extreme but looks to have been replaced by the Intensity Shuttle, even less expensive) using the component video outputs of the DVR or Bluray. This will add a conversion from digital to analog and back to digital, but the visual difference is minimal for my intended purpose (and certainly the OP's). The one issue I've seen is that it will add some ugly interlacing artifacts, but those can be cleaned up. It's a bit of a strange workaround and certainly not as easy as a VCR interface, but it gets it done.
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I'm just trying to find a digital option to replace the VCR connected to the TV in my living room, so I don't have to mess with VHS tapes anymore. My cable box has only 2 outputs -- HDMI or coax. It doesn't have composite or component outputs of any kind.

I need it to connect to the coax cable (or the HDMI, I suppose) coming out of my cable box, and connect via some form -- HDMI or coax -- to my TV. It needs to be able to record the signal that comes out of my cable box and play it on the TV.

And it needs to be programmable like my VCR, so it can record a program unattended.

The Black Magic Intensity would have to be connected to my computer for power and in order to record. That's not what I'm looking for.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Sounds like you want a DVR, a device that works just like a VCR but uses a hard drive instead of tapes. Like this:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/46444956?...75035&wl11=online&wl12=46444956&wl13=&veh=sem
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Well that's a hard to find item. Except for that Walmart listing, it seems to be sold out everywhere else -- which sounds like it, like so many others like it, has been discontinued.

And it's more expensive that I'd have liked. The little RCA DTA880 was only $50 at Walmart -- but, of course, it doesn't work with cable. It seems to me it should be cheaper to build one that doesn't need to have its own tuner -- it would just connect after the cable box and let the cable box handle the channels. I know, I know -- it wouldn't let you record one channel while watching another one, or set the timer to record two programs from different channels (at different times), but I can't do either of those with my VCR, so that's not a problem for me.

I was hoping I could find an inexpensive solution. And while that does look like it would do a great job, I'm wary of spending that much money buying into what is obviously, for whatever reason, a vanishing market. But thanks for finding it!
 
It doesn't seem like it should be so hard.

Replace the motor and tape mechanisms of a standard VCR with a solid-state hard drive and a circuit board to operate it, along with an analog-to-digital converter. Take out the tuner section, since it only needs to record whatever signal comes in through the coax, which will be whatever channel is set on the cable box. Keep the timer function, but simplify it to record only from the input signal -- no need to be able to set it for a channel, since there's no tuner.

Smaller, lighter, less power consumption, and would work for tons of us who have cable -- probably satellite too. Want to be able to record multiple programs at once? Or schedule to record two different programs at different times on different channels? Then you need your cable company's DVR. For us simple folk, this kind of device would replace our old VCRs and make life simpler for us.

For that matter, why can't RCA take their DTA880 and add the ability to handle an analog signal as well as a digital one? That should work as well. It seems like all they would have to do is have the signal bypass the digital-to-analog portion of the circuit.

Why isn't any of that do-able? And if it is, then why isn't anyone doing it?
 
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Here's another thought.

My HDTV has a USB port for a flash drive. I can take a flash drive that has pictures on it, plug it into the port, and run a slideshow on the TV.

Why can't the manufacturer of my TV add a recording capability that would use that flash drive? I'm just not understanding what the problem is here.
 
Run&Gun already answered your question. Television manufacturers work cooperatively with other industries to prevent high-quality recordings being made from television content. Your TV is that way on purpose.
 
Paul F said:
Run&Gun already answered your question. Television manufacturers work cooperatively with other industries to prevent high-quality recordings being made from television content. Your TV is that way on purpose.
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Okay, that explains the TV. It doesn't explain why no one makes a device that can take the analog signal from my cable box, via coax, and record it -- even in SD format, if resolution is the issue -- to a hard drive or flash drive, in the same way my ancient VHS VCR can do to a tape.

I assume what you're talking about is encoding in the digital (HDMI) signal. I would assume that when the cable box sends what must be an analog signal out, that such encoding is not present in the analog signal, is that right? If that's the case, one should then be able to convert it back to a digital signal -- albeit not at the same resolution as the original -- and write it to a hard drive, shouldn't they? I mean, there are cards for computers that do this, so why not a standalone device to attach to the TV?

Another thing. How is is that the RCA DTA880 is able to record an over-the-air HD signal to a flash drive? If that can be done, then why is this such a problem?
 
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David W. Richardson said:
Okay, that explains the TV. It doesn't explain why no one makes a device that can take the analog signal from my cable box, via coax, and record it -- even in SD format, if resolution is the issue -- to a hard drive or flash drive, in the same way my ancient VHS VCR can do to a tape.
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For the same reasons that the TVs don't do it. Everyone is working cooperatively to prevent high quality recordings from being made and duplicated. This was a real problem for content providers in the VHS days. They made sure it was not a problem in the digital age.


David W. Richardson said:
Another thing. How is is that the RCA DTA880 is able to record an over-the-air HD signal to a flash drive? If that can be done, then why is this such a problem?
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The DTA880 does not make digital content available to the consumer. The only output is analog. It has a DVR, but that is the same function that a cable box has.
 
Okay, it looks like this little device might do the trick, but it may also need that HDMI splitter mentioned earlier that strips out the HDCP.

https://www.amazon.com/DigitNow-BR1...1469026502&sr=8-9&keywords=video+capture+card

Like the RCA DTA880, it records to a USB-connected flash drive. It has an HDMI input as well as an output, plus pass-through. So I can run the HDMI signal from my cable box through this and should be able to record whatever I'm watching. It doesn't have any ability to pre-set a record time, but it's better than nothing.
 
Paul F said:
For the same reasons that the TVs don't do it. Everyone is working cooperatively to prevent high quality recordings from being made and duplicated. This was a real problem for content providers in the VHS days. They made sure it was not a problem in the digital age.
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But as I've said repeatedly, I'm not looking for high quality. If I can get the same quality that I get from my VHS tapes, that's fine -- at least I won't have to mess with tapes anymore.

The DTA880 does not make digital content available to the consumer. The only output is analog. It has a DVR, but that is the same function that a cable box has.
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Yes, the output is analog, and that's fine with me. But the only INPUT it accepts is digital, and it gets that through a coax connector. If it simply had an HDMI connector, and could bypass it's own internal tuner, then it would work fine for me. OR if it also accepted an analog signal, bypassing its tuner and digital-to-analog converter, that would work too.

I'm not looking for an HD recorder. I'm looking for an SD recorder that will do what my VCR does right now. With my VCR right now I can record ANY channel (in the standard cable package) with my VCR -- regardless of whether it's an HD channel or an SD channel. Of course the resulting recording is SD analog, but it works. That's all I'm trying to do.
 
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