Recording HD signals now legal ? - Hauppauge HD PVR

[bigkahuna]

From what I see here:
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

It seems that Hauppauge has brought out a box which can connect to your sat box using component cables,
and so, can then be input into your compute at 1080i !

Perhaps I'm sleeping under a rock, but I didn't know that manufactures of TV tuners were now allowed selling cards which enable us to record in full hd !

Anyone surprised here ? or is it just me ?

[Craig]

I'm sure you're not the only one, but it's been out for a while now. Little expensive though.

[The Dude]

It was never illegal it's just that the cable and satellite providers wanted you to buy their DVRs which is why they made it as difficult as they could. Recording HD is no different then recording SD from a legal standpoint.

[Miller]

It's actually the last news big enough that Rampy updated the front page with.

[whurlston]

It's always been legal. The reason it's legal is because of something commonly called the "Analog loophole". You are not allow to circumvent copy protection but once the STB outputs the decoded video via the component connectors, there is no copy protection on the signal anymore.

Previously, the technology did not exist at a reasonable cost to consumers to be able to capture full uncompressed analog HD video. Now it does, thanks to the H.264 encoder chip from Ambarella. If we tried to capture the uncompressed video, well...

8-bit 720p = 885Mb/s and would create a filesize of about 400GB for 1 hour of video. 1080i is even higher.

[Miller]

8-bit 720p = 885Mb/s and would create a filesize of about 400GB for 1 hour of video. 1080i is even higher.

Sheesh, talk about filling up your hard drive! Yes, I'd like one of those new 1.5 TB drives so I can record three hours of video please.

[bigkahuna]

LOL, don't know where you get that info, but that's totally false, but maybe you were joking.

400 GB for 1 hour ? LOL.

12.9 gb per hour is industry standard for HDV, and has been forever, and that won't change.  I'm talking about
1080p too, not 1080i, which is higher quality than 1080i.

I edit professional video every single day, so I know just a little bit about this stuff 

It's always been legal. The reason it's legal is because of something commonly called the "Analog loophole". You are not allow to circumvent copy protection but once the STB outputs the decoded video via the component connectors, there is no copy protection on the signal anymore.

Previously, the technology did not exist at a reasonable cost to consumers to be able to capture full uncompressed analog HD video. Now it does, thanks to the H.264 encoder chip from Ambarella. If we tried to capture the uncompressed video, well...

8-bit 720p = 885Mb/s and would create a filesize of about 400GB for 1 hour of video. 1080i is even higher.

[Miller]

I'll preface by saying I don't know much about this topic, but isn't the 12.9 GB/hour quote still some sort of compressed video signal? Just like a DVD is mpeg2. Yes, it's the industry standard, but it's still a compressed video. I think whurlston was referring to actual uncompressed video.

Also, I don't know if the signal being digital or analog would make a difference for the file size either.

It would be like comparing a jpg to a raw picture. Jpg is one of the standards, but it's still compressed.

Am I just way off here?

[whurlston]

Miller is dead on, I am talking about capturing uncompressed analog video which is what component video is.

12.9 Gb/hr is definitely using some type of compression (most likely MJPEG). A single frame of 720p is 921,600 pixels and at 8 bit color depth you are looking at over 2MB:
(1280 x 720 x 24bits = 2,2118,400). Multiply that by 24 frames per second and you get 506.25 Mbits or (63MB) of a single second of video. At that rate, you will hit 12.9GB in less than 5 minutes.

I can't remember which chart I used for the rate above (link found somewhere on Google) but there is a bitrate calculator at http://web.forret.com/tools/video_fps.asp

They calculate 720p video at 238.88 GB/hr which is low in my opinion but it is still far to high too consider doing on a standard HTPC.

[bigkahuna]

Yes, 12.9 gb per hour is compressed, but is still very very high quality.

When you visit any of the sites which offer programs that have been recorded using OTA,
say for example a new episode of CSI Miami.  The person recording it, isn't recording it as un-compressed
data, and then converting a 400 Gb file.

Do you know how long it would take to actually encode just an hour ? , nobody is actually recording OTA 1 hour programs @ 400 gigs.  That's just a given.

That's all I'm saying. Sorry for the confusion.

[whurlston]

Yes but those are recording the direct digital stream with contains MPEG2 compression and no encryption. I was actually talking about programs that are encrypted. The analog loophole allows you to record the uncompressed analog output from the STB legally. The problem was that until the HDPVR, it was not feasible to record the output in HD formats, so you had to use the SVIDEO output from the STB and record in SD format.