Multimedia For Dummies

[Guru of Nothing]

I have a Time-Warner package that includes 7 HBO channels, the Sundance Channel, Fox Movie Channel, TCM and IFC (ALL commercial free) and between them there are dozens of great movies on each week. Luckily, I also have a DVR which I can record over 40 hours worth of anything I want (except pay-per-views), but I go through stretches where I don't really feel like watching movies and the queue gets backed up, and I either have to delete unwatched movies or not record movies I want to watch at a later date.

Here are my questions:

Can I go to my nearest Wal-mart (or other vendor) and pick up a cheap DVD recorder and "burn" these movies to DVD? Am I even using the correct term here - dvd?

If so, can someone give me a run down on price vs. quality? Does the DVD recorder even come into play when discussing recording quality? I'm thinking the digital feed and the media are what determines quality.

If I'm on the right track here (that' s probably a geeky pun that is over my head), how much do blank DVDs cost? Capacity?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer my questions. Even better if you can send my a link for dummies, because I still have more questions.

If it is all as cheap and easy as I hope, I am sitting on a movie goldmine. I could EASILY record 500 movies within a year (lots of obscure, quirky cool stuff along with tons of classics). That would represent one of a movie collection.

[exstatic]

The only way to get stuff off of the DVR is to "play" it off. If you had a video capture card on your PC, you could play it to a file, then burn that to a DVD. I did all kinds of research on this, and the bottom line is that the files are encrypted on the DVR, so even if you could get something to "see" the file on the DVR, it would be gobbledegook.

[Guru of Nothing]

Well that is a bummer, but, is there a little hope for me? Could I record it directly off the cable feed? With the online viewing guide I could probably do something makeshift, like leaving the player on (say during the day while I am at work) and programming the recorder to record from the scheduled start/finish times?

Thanks.

[baseline bum]

Best bet is to buy a hardware DVD capture card for your computer and save the movies to your hard drive (using the DVD capture card as the tuner and scheduler/recorder), and then burn them to DVD. It'll set you back about $100 or so for a decent hardware capture card, plus whatever you need if you need to buy another HD or a DVD burner.

[Guru of Nothing]

Best bet is to buy a hardware DVD capture card for your computer and save the movies to your hard drive (using the DVD capture card as the tuner and scheduler/recorder), and then burn them to DVD. It'll set you back about $100 or so for a decent hardware capture card, plus whatever you need if you need to buy another HD or a DVD burner.

Thanks much for the advice, but I have one problem. My "computer" is in fact a piece of extreme proprietary hardware.

I think I'm out of luck here.

[baseline bum]

You don't have an open PCI slot on your motherboard?

[Guru of Nothing]

, I don't know. I see jacks and cables.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, but I'm dumber than you think.

[MannyIsGod]

In the world of DVDs, don't forget the tools of the old world, VCRs. You could run the DVR out to a VCR and record what you want onto Video, and watch it later.

It's a low tech solution, but its also very low cost.

[E20]

You could try Netflix and just rent and burn as much movies as you can, you get 1 month free trial.

[Nbadan]

You don't have an open PCI slot on your motherboard?

Thanks for taking the time to reply, but I'm dumber than you think.

We need a tech forum.