Record tv/private feeds to DVD

[Georgie Burgess]

First off, I'm based in Ireland so mpeg4 is the digital standard!

I have been asked by my boss to investigate the best way to record tv/private feeds to DVD. Currently we have a 2 x UPC digital boxes, which have digital to analogue converters on them (for what reason I don’t know), which are then fed to numerous tv’s throughout the office. We also have a private feed coming from another institution, which is fed via the same coax cable to the various tv’s and can be tuned in as if it were a normal channel. I’m not sure if this is a digital or analogue signal.

My boss wants to be able to record the private feeds and then burn them to dvd. He has suggested a HDD box. We already have one in one meeting room, a Sony DVD-870B, which I set up, and it works fine. I’m able to record and then burn to disc. However, this new device will be used and managed by an ordinary joe soap in their own office so it will have to be simple to use. The Sony HDR is staying put where it is.

Having done a little research, I can see that HDD boxes are a dying breed. If we were to purchase one, I would prefer to get a Panasonic as they are supposed to be a bit simpler to operate. I have also looked into buying a tv tuner card. I believe a Hauppauge WIN TV HVR-4400 would be the one to get as it’s half height pci express, does analogue and digital and can handle both mpeg2 and mpeg4. I would then need to fit a dvdrw drive into the person’s PC.

The person who wants to record/burn the feeds already has a tv in their office which is fed by a coax cable. I also want to future proof this so it would have to be capable of receiving both analogue and digital (mpeg4).

Any advice on what is the best method?

 

[Broadz]

As long as you get an older DVDR with an analogue tuner as well as a digital tuner, the analogue feed from this private (presumably closed circuit style) television will be able to be tuned into using the analogue tuner, and therefore will be able to be recorded to hard drive/DVD. A second coax from the RF out on the DVDR to the existing TV distribution system will still allow the output from this private feed to be viewed whether the DVDR is switched on or off, recording or not.

HDD boxes are certainly not a dying breed - if anything they are becoming more popular than DVDRs as many people only need to timeshift, not permanently archive, but a HDD machine (or PVR) is no use for you, as they can only record from their internal tuners and don't come with an offline recording capability (tape or DVD). More importantly, HDD machines normally only contain a digital tuner, not analogue, so would not allow you to pick up the analogue signal from this third-party TV system anyway.