Recording satellite video onto my PC and I need help understanding.

[Dead3ye]

I know there are oodles of threads floating around on using your PC as a PVR and associated hardware, but none really deal with doing this with a satellite receiver so my specific questions haven't been answered by hours of research. I am a newbie when it comes to digital recording.

I have everything needed except the video in part. I was looking at TV tuner cards, but I really don't need the tuner part. I will probably be using the S-video port. Any recommendations? I was looking at either the ASUS card or the Leadtek card, but like I said, I really don't need a "tuner", I think.

I need to know how the sound gets recorded along with the video. Do I need to connect the sound outputs of the receiver to the TV tuner? Is this done in software while the video is recording?

I'm remodeling my computer room and my satellite receiver is in another room so I want to put in the appropiate wall jacks and run the cableing to my receiver and I'm at a loss to what I need to do.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Any Tuner with S-Video in will do.

Plug the sound directly in your sound card's line-in.

 

[ScrewFace]

Thanks, Spicedaddy. You have helped us both! Keep up the good work!

 

[Dead3ye]

Any recommendations on which card?

Thanks for the reply.

 

[mschell]

I currently use my computer system to view DSS programing. Since my reciver is close to the computer the wiring is fairly easy. Since a long length of S- cable would be expensive I would use the composit output on the reciver. As for a "TV" card for the computer, any of the $50 PCI tuner cards do a good job of capturing video, at least in VCR/VCD resolutions. Yea they have a tuner but it doesn't add to the cost. You could also upgrade your video card and use either a ATI all in wonder - the 7500 ($120) is a good value if you don't game much or you could go with a Nvidia 4200Ti VIVO model ($150) which will have better game performance but don't generally come with the slick capture software ATI cards come with. I like Intervideo Win Coder for recording video but you will need some kind of burning program to put video on to VCD or DVD.
By the way, I,m currently using a Pixel View 128MB Ti4200 VIVO card - great game performance and good video capture but my 2 year old TV Wonder pci card was just as good.

 

[Dead3ye]

Yeah, I game a bunch. I have a Visiontek Ti4200 128MB that I won't be replacing any time soon. It has TV out but no video in. If I would have been thinking far enough ahead when I bought it, I would have considered a VIVO card.

BTW, do the Nvidia reference driver do TV out or do I have to use the manufactuer's drivers? I hadn't given that a thought. I've always used the reference drivers.