HDMI Capture Card

[abraxus]

Hi

I wonder if anyone can answer me a question.

If I were to attach a HDMI capture card to my laptop would I be able to connect, view and capture from my Telewest TV Drive?

[BigBry]

A quick search in the computer forums here reveal quite a lot of info on this question, for example.

[nigelbb]

You face two major obstacles to HDMI capture. Firstly HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is there to prevent you copying anything over HDMI. Secondly the I/O bandwidth & CPU power required for handling uncompressed HD material over HDMI is quite beyond the capacities of your laptop.

[abraxus]

Originally Posted by BigBry

A quick search in the computer forums here reveal quite a lot of info on this question, for example.

Thanks BigBry

[abraxus]

Originally Posted by nigelbb

You face two major obstacles to HDMI capture. Firstly HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is there to prevent you copying anything over HDMI. Secondly the I/O bandwidth & CPU power required for handling uncompressed HD material over HDMI is quite beyond the capacities of your laptop.

Thanks Nigel, but to be honest, given that there is little HD content transmitted by Telewest, I'm more interested in using HDMI for two other reasons. First being to record SD material over a better connection than my current coaxial one, and second to avoid the hassle of having to switch off the HDMI transmission on the TV Drive in order to output over other connections.

For these purposes I don't think that HDCP nor the power of my laptop (2.13GHz processor and 2GB ram) should be an issue.

I know I could just record to the TV Drive, buy a DVD recorder and archive the DVD's to the pc, but it would be easier if I could just record direct to the laptop.

[Whitey1977]

Originally Posted by abraxus

Thanks Nigel, but to be honest, given that there is little HD content transmitted by Telewest, I'm more interested in using HDMI for two other reasons. First being to record SD material over a better connection than my current coaxial one, and second to avoid the hassle of having to switch off the HDMI transmission on the TV Drive in order to output over other connections.

For these purposes I don't think that HDCP nor the power of my laptop (2.13GHz processor and 2GB ram) should be an issue.

I know I could just record to the TV Drive, buy a DVD recorder and archive the DVD's to the pc, but it would be easier if I could just record direct to the laptop.

I'm affraid what nigel said is still correct, HDCP is an issue even if you only want to record SD, and the video stream from HDMI is un-compressed and at a data rate too high for your laptop.

Whitey

[abraxus]

Originally Posted by Whitey1977

I'm affraid what nigel said is still correct, HDCP is an issue even if you only want to record SD, and the video stream from HDMI is un-compressed and at a data rate too high for your laptop.

Whitey

OK, well that gives me two questions. Firstly I was under the impression that SD broadcasts on the TV Drive didn't carry an HDCP encryption, is this incorrect?

And secondly, are there any capture cards that handle the processing on the card rather than rely on the processing ability of my machine?

Alternatively, what would anyone suggest as the best way of capturing directlyfrom a TV Drive, or am I better off using a DVD recorder and then transferring to hard drive?

Thanks.