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capturing cable tv into final cut pro

M

mjmitchell85

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 27, 2007
6
0
Hi all,

I am looking into buying some sort of video converter to capture cable tv directly onto my macbook pro. My purpose isn't for monetary gain, I simply would like to capture good quality music videos/concerts and attempt to edit them together to be played during parties. I am very efficient in FCP and am looking for a cost-efficient way to capture cable tv onto my mac via firewire.

I have hunted around and although I would love to buy an ADVC-HD50 from grass valley I do not feel like shelling out 900 bucks. I stumbled upon the eyetv hybrid from elgato and was wondering if anyone could make a suggestion. I understand that this appears to be more of a commercial product to watch tv but I was wondering if anyone knew if it would be possible to use it as a converter-type device and capture good quality video/audio directly into FCP.

Any other suggestions in regard to capturing cable tv onto a mac to edit in FCP would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Cheers
 
mcavjame

mcavjame

macrumors 65816
Mar 10, 2008
1,031
1
phased to this universe
I use the eyetV 250+. Same concept and software, just slightly different device.

The units capture to a proprietary codec that can then be exported to iTunes or other formats. AFAIK there is no direct input into FCP.

You could always transcode your file with handbrake after it is captured.

FWIW - the hybrid version only captures over the air HD, not HD from a cable box. This may have changed recently, but in the past cable companies protected their HD content, whereas over the air content is open.
 
D

djkirsten

macrumors regular
Nov 3, 2006
124
2
Blackmagic offers a few hardware options if you want to shell out a few benjamins:

here is if you want to go straight to iPod/iPhone/Apple TV:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/videorecorder/

here is if you want to digitize into FCP through the capture tool:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

But if non of those catch your fancy...I used to have a DV camera that i could play TV into (through composite) and get a Firewire signal out of (to FCP). So maybe if you have a camera to run it through you could try that...some cameras can do it and some cant, i believe the feature is called "passthrough".
 
X

xStep

macrumors 68020
Jan 28, 2003
2,031
143
Less lost in L.A.
mcavjame said:
FWIW - the hybrid version only captures over the air HD, not HD from a cable box. This may have changed recently, but in the past cable companies protected their HD content, whereas over the air content is open.
Click to expand...

The current revision does decode unencrypted HD over cable too.
 
X

xStep

macrumors 68020
Jan 28, 2003
2,031
143
Less lost in L.A.
I've used my Hybrid (original with 2.5.3 of the EyeTV software) a few of times for exporting TV content recorded over analog cable and 1080i HD over the air. It does a decent job. I'm not a professional editor so have no pro experience to compare it to.

Attached are the codecs I can export to. The second image is via the 'QuickTime' export option seen the the first image.
 

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Cromulent

Cromulent

macrumors 604
Oct 2, 2006
6,802
1,096
The Land of Hope and Glory
xStep said:
I've used my Hybrid (original with 2.5.3 of the EyeTV software) a few of times for exporting TV content recorded over analog cable and 1080i HD over the air. It does a decent job. I'm not a professional editor so have no pro experience to compare it to.

Attached are the codecs I can export to. The second image is via the 'QuickTime' export option seen the the first image.
Click to expand...

You want to export to DV if it is SD footage or HDV if it is HD footage assuming you want to edit the footage in a video editing application.
 
jzuena

jzuena

macrumors 65816
Feb 21, 2007
1,125
149
mjmitchell85 said:
Hi all,

I am looking into buying some sort of video converter to capture cable tv directly onto my macbook pro. My purpose isn't for monetary gain, I simply would like to capture good quality music videos/concerts and attempt to edit them together to be played during parties. I am very efficient in FCP and am looking for a cost-efficient way to capture cable tv onto my mac via firewire.

I have hunted around and although I would love to buy an ADVC-HD50 from grass valley I do not feel like shelling out 900 bucks. I stumbled upon the eyetv hybrid from elgato and was wondering if anyone could make a suggestion. I understand that this appears to be more of a commercial product to watch tv but I was wondering if anyone knew if it would be possible to use it as a converter-type device and capture good quality video/audio directly into FCP.

Any other suggestions in regard to capturing cable tv onto a mac to edit in FCP would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Cheers
Click to expand...

In addition to the EyeTV already brought up, if you have a cable converter box and if the FireWire port on that box is active you can capture the stream directly to your Mac as long as the protected content bit isn't being sent for whatever it is you are watching. I've tried doing a quick capture of SportsCenter on ESPN-HD as a test for my MythTV PVR and it worked fine in full HD. I never really went further with it to see what percentage of HD programs would be open vs. protected, since I would have needed to put in a much larger hard drive.
 
M

mjmitchell85

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 27, 2007
6
0
thanks

thanks for the advice everyone! ill let you know what i do and how it works out.
 
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