Archiving HDTV broadcasts - how?

[Lara F]

I've had a Panasonic DVD recorder for the last 5-6 years or so. Still works great other than being slooow to load, but the problem is that since I upgraded to an HDTV my recordings (from a Time Warner Scientific Atlanta DVR) now seem crap in comparison to the original broadcasts. What I really want is to archive in HD, be it on disc or hard drive. If someone knowledgable could run through my options I'd appreciate it. I have a Mac Mini so I believe the new Elgato EyeTV HD would be a good bet, just wondering if it's pretty much my only one. Thanks!

 

[GreatDrok]

I've had a Panasonic DVD recorder for the last 5-6 years or so. Still works great other than being slooow to load, but the problem is that since I upgraded to an HDTV my recordings (from a Time Warner Scientific Atlanta DVR) now seem crap in comparison to the original broadcasts. What I really want is to archive in HD, be it on disc or hard drive. If someone knowledgable could run through my options I'd appreciate it. I have a Mac Mini so I believe the new Elgato EyeTV HD would be a good bet, just wondering if it's pretty much my only one. Thanks!

I have an EyeTV Hybrid which I've used a few times to record stuff off HD broadcast - both 1080i and 720p. I convert it all to 720p and stream it to my ATV. Of course, I live in a 50Hz country so converting 720p50 to 720p25 doesn't result in judder and the ATV will happily play it. Picture quality is pretty good and file sizes are decent - a two hour recording comes in around 1.5GB. The software that comes with the EyeTV hooks in to QuickTime and does the conversion to ATV well. I have QuickTime Pro so I usually edit adverts out after conversion to 720p since I can do frame perfect edits.