Recording off digital OTA
 

I'd like to buy an HD TV tuner card and record shows onto my PC, but someone told me that digital OTA signals are protected or encrypted somehow and that you can't record some (or all?) of them. Is this true?

Nope, that is not true. There are many products on the market today, like TiVo and other DVRs, that can directly record over the air broadcasts. They typically store the original raw video data stream, so playback is every bit as good as watching it live.

To record shows on a PC, you need an ATSC tuner card or adapter.

I have been recording with the Hauppauge TV tuner card using Windows Media Center for about a year now. And it works great.

I also record shows OTA using my old DVD recorder. I use a digital to analog recorder of course and it records is SD but nonetheless it records. On a side note I have tried recording shows from Netflix and HuluPlus streaming and they are protected. Even though I can record a network show OTA the same show cannot be recorded streamed.

There are some cases where the broadcaster sets a do not copy flag. MS is big on Digital Rights Management. I've read reports that indicate Windows Media Center will honor that flag and thus refuse to record.

I have not heard of any other OTA recording software implementing such DRM.

I have never had any issues with MythTV or my XP platform. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=820

Here are some other Tuner/Recorders.

http://www.epvision.con.

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http://www.channelmasterstore.com.