Recording DirectTV DVR

[CharlestonC4]

 

I need to record several of my sons football games off of the Direct TV DVR.  The DVR stream is encoded so you can not record over HDMI.  The best I can figure out is to convert the HDMI to component video and converting back to HDMI to my computer.  The quality isn’t great. Has anyone else solved this problem?

[zaphod]

This has nothing to do with Control4, but here goes.

You need a capture device to be able to capture the signal.  You want to capture it to a digital video file format like an MP4, MKV, etc.  Then you can play it on you computer, phone, tablet, etc.

When you say Component video do you mean the Red-Green-Blue cable combo, or just the one yellow cable.  The former is Component which can be HD and should be almost as good in quality as HDMI.  The yellow cable is called Composite and is standard definition and you will see a large degradation in quality.

There are capture devices that can capture all of these types of signals.  The issue with HDMI is that they have an ecryption called HDCP to try to stop you from copying HD content.  This is easily circumvented but may technically be illegal, so that is why you don't see as many devices available.  Component video does not have any encryption so it is easier to capture.  But some boxes, like your DirectTV may downrez the signal on tis port to prevent capture of HD images.

You can capture Component using devices like the Hauppauge HD-PVR.  I use an HD-PVR to capture the signal from my cable boxes as I use a computer as a DVR.  There is also an HD-PVR2 that, I believe, allows HDMI capture, assuming that the HDCP has beens stripped.  You can often use something as simple as a HDMI splitter to strip to copy protection.

You might also be able to find someone that does this as a service if you only have one game that you want to capture.  There might be a video service that also does stuff like converts old VCR tapes to digital video files.  Maybe try to Google and see if you find someone like that.  Then you would take your box and they would capture the game and create the file.

[Neo1738]

Do you have any computer access to the games from directv ie like DTV Stream? If they give a web or computer login you could get a screen capture software and record your screen as you "watch" the game. 

[Cyknight]

On 8/28/2022 at 11:36 AM, CharlestonC4 said:

The DVR stream is encoded so you can not record over HDMI.

Output on HDMI wouldn't be 'encoded' as such, but would follow HDCP, which would likely pass on that it's protected content, and as such cannot be accepted by 'proper' HDMI capture cards.

Of course there's lots of not so proper capture cards, and not so proper hdmi splitters out there that Google can find out about for you.... https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=hdcp+removing+splitter