From DVR to DVD (1 Viewer)

[Aaron B]

I've been wanting to burn some personal things off of my DirecTiVo for a long time. I finally took the plunge and got a pretty good internal DVD burner for my PC this weekend and I got Nero 7 Ultra. Am I correct in assuming that I can now buy a good DVD recorder and do the following:

#1. Copy the TiVo programing onto a DVD+RW.

#2. Take the RW from the player and use the DVD drive on my PC to rip the file onto my PC's Hard drive.

#3. Use Nero 7 to edit out all the commercials and then use my PC DVD drive to burn the program sans commercials.

I think I'm on track here but if I'm off base, please let me know. I would also like to have the programs in good quality, how would I adjust for this? I would assume that there's some sort of option to let me adjust for recording quality.

One last thing. I've been reading that there's no way to burn an actual movie from say HBO on to a DVD from ones TiVo. Something about a different signal that does not allow the TiVo to record to a device? I thank anyone in advance for any help or advice.

Aaron B.

 

[Robert_J]

I've done the 3 steps you list above. It's not the fastest process in the world but it will work.

As for HBO blocking the recording. I've read a few messages about this over at Tivo Community but most of the time it turns out to be user error. They could always turn on Macrovision copy protection but I don't think they ever have. I was recording Sleeper Cell that I Tivoed on Showtime HD to my Ilo DVD recorder and did not have a problem. To make sure I got the best quality, I recorded each 1 hour episode to a single DVD.

-Robert

 

[Aaron B]

Thanks for the reply Robert! I know it's going to take a while, but to me it's worth it. There are some shows and movies on TV that I would buy in a heartbeat but they are not out yet. I plan on buying them but for now personal copies will have to do.

So let me get something right here. The episodes of Sleeper Cell took up one whole DVD!? I assume that this is because you burned a copy in HD, correct? I don't have an HD receiver so mine will be in regular old S-Video quality. When I burn them will they at least be that good or will the quality degrade? I'm not asking for much here, but I'd like them to be better than an average, blocky MPEG on my PC.

Aaron B.

 

[dany]

You cant record in 5.1,right?

 

[Aaron B]

I would highly doubt it, BUT there is a tool included with Nero 7 Ultra that lets you mix audio in 5.1. No idea what that's all about because I haven't dug too heavily into the different programs.

Something that REALLY peaked my interest was a paragraph in the instruction booklet that says something to the effect of "When you start to burn session you will be prompted to pick your medium (CD, DVD, DVD-DL, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD).
Those last two were a shocker to be sure! I guess they were forward thinking and wrote the program to accommodate if burning drives for PC's come out in those two formats.

Aaron B.

 

[Robert_J]

And no, they aren't even close to HD quality. First step down was the down-res to 480i to my DVD recorder could understand the signal. Then they are re-digitalized before burning to DVD. The better the source, the better the end result. You will have a slight loss of quality but how much depends on the quality of your DVD recorder. For the best quality, you would need a video capture card that had component inputs and accepted an HD signal. The last one I looked at cost around $5,000.

-Robert

 

[Aaron B]

As long as I can get the same quality that my TiVo records in, which is not really great just average, then that's all I care about. Like I said I'll leave the spiffy looking picture and sound to the professionals. I plan on buying what I'm going to record if they will release them. What's your opinion of the picture quality if I put say 2-3 hour long shows on one disc? Sans commercials of course.

Aaron B.