Recording from V+ box

quote:

Originally posted by Rockingdoc:
Can anyone advise what kit I need to get to record HD discs which can be played on other machines from progs stored in HD on my V+box hard drive? Some sort of stand alone BD recorder?

Hauppage do a HD PVR box which allows you to connect upto 1080i via Component to your computer - not sure is this is any use for you.

AFAIK, the only BD recorders in UK are the Panasonic ones and they only record High Def from their internal FreeSat tuner.

Eloise

Thanks. Presumably any progs recorded in the V+Box memory as HD can't be converted to SD for recording to a stand alone DVD recorder. The days of recording a prog from the telly and then lending it to your friends to watch seem to have gone.

HD camcorder footage is stored in AVCHD format.

The supplied PC software with my Panasonic HD camcorder interfaces very easily, and will also import AVCHD files from other media (SDHC card, hard disc etc) It allows you to output the AVCHD (hidef MP4 IIRC) to various media, including Bluray disc, DVD, or USB stick/SDHC card. It will also output to a bluray recorder to make standard bluray discs, although the blanks are rather expensive ATM. Hence a bluray recorder drive should do what you want (currently seem to start at about £180)

Most modern bluray players seem to be able to handle AVCHD files giving the HD playback you seem to want. You only get about 30-40 minutes on a standard DVD, though.

Also, you can output the footage in SD DVD format (even the HD files).

I've invested in a pair of external 500GB laptop drives to store the HD video files as extra backup to AVCHD files on DVD-R

Should you require more elaborate editing facilities whilst keeping this same basic functionality, then Pinnacle Studio Ultimate or Adobe Premiere Elements should suffice, and IIRC both programs will allow you to output in lower resolution formats suitable for smartphones, YouTube, Facebook etc

I personally preferred the interface on the older version of Pinnacle Studio to that offered by Adobe. Of course YMMV

So, no problem that I can see. All you need is a program such as Pinnacle Studio Ultimate and a bluray recorder drive for your PC should you wish to make standard bluray discs rather than DVDs

Hope that is the information you require.

quote:

Originally posted by Rockingdoc:
Thanks. Presumably any progs recorded in the V+Box memory as HD can't be converted to SD for recording to a stand alone DVD recorder. The days of recording a prog from the telly and then lending it to your friends to watch seem to have gone.

Does the V+ box have a standard SCART? If so you should just be able to connect it to a stadard DVD recorder if you just want to record in standard def. I do this with my Sky+HD - well did till the DVD-R died. The issue is getting hold of a DVD recorder without HDD facilities which you don't need.

I'm going to show my ignorance.

Is your v+box something to do with Virgin Media? I don't know what format Virgin Media or Sky HD boxes store their footage, never having owned one.

If so, then any off-air recordings may have some form of copy protection built in, aka Sky HD (no, I don't have Sky or Virgin myself) limiting numbers of copies or even how often you can view it.

If that is the case, then your easiest (if not only) option is to output the footage via HDMI or component to a standalone bluray recorder (eg Panasonic - about £700 IIRC, which comes with Freesat HD built in), or SCART to a DVD recorder if you only want SD copies. The only problem with that approach is that you go through the analogue domain and then back to digital, with some potential quality loss.

Does your v box have USB output? If so you could possibly connect it to a PC as I described earlier and just copy straight onto the PC's hard drive, assuming that the footage is stored in AVCHD format.

Virgin V+ HD box has a menu in the software which seems to allow recording from the hard drive to an external recorder, but the file format is not stated. Any "copy protection" takes place before you can record to the V+Box, for example BBC i-Player progs won't record.
Thanks for the helpful replies

I looked at the external recorder output ages ago when I still had a VCR. As far as I remember it was analogue so the format would be whatever the recorder is set to record.
Apologies if I'm remembering wrongly.

I've just been checking the outputs on my Scientific-Atlanta box. As well as the HDMI and scarts there is an ethernet socket and a USB port. I don't know if these are active at the moment. It might be interesting to see if you can run a USB cable to your PC or laptop and see what you get.

I don't know about the Samsung box but I'd be surprised if it was substantially different.

Nope - the USB port is disabled and the Ethernet port is too (it was an option to use the box as a cable modem). Shame as i'd like to be able to shift the programmes off the V+ Hard drive onto my Network Storage.

QUOTE] Virgin V+ HD box has a menu in the software which seems to allow recording from the hard drive to an external recorder, but the file format is not stated. [/QUOTE] - only via the standard Scart / HDMI outputs unfortunately.

James

I've just noticed there's an eSATA output, apparently disabled too. Looks like the box is capable of more than Virgin's using it for at the moment. Even if you connected through HDMI to an external recorder I'm not sure what you'd actually see.
The box is definitely capable of a lot more than meets the eye just now but it looks like Virgin are keeping it under wraps until they decide what they're going to do with it.

Yes i'm suprised Virgin havent done more with it - probably prefer to sell extra boxes for multiroom etc. Now a V+ box with network streaming and control from an iPod touch app would be nice...

James

Basically all HD recievers are restricted to prevent copying of the HD material.

If you buy a Panasonic BluRay recorder, you can only record from it's inbuilt FreeSat HD (or FreeView HD) tuner. There is no way or inputting other HD sources.

With your Virgin V+ box, you can output analogue SD to a DVD Recorder. With a box such as the Hauppage you can record component HD, but you need to get the signal into component in the first place which may be difficult.

With a Sky+HD box you *may* be able to extract some video by removing the HDD and placing it into a computer - but discussion of that here is forbidden as is circumventing copy protection. Not sure if you can do similar with a V+ box anyway.

Eloise