Sky+ Copy

bpmurray

What do folks do to make a permanent copy of what's on the Sky+? The Copy function appears to spit out the program onto the SCART and S-video connections, but these are analogue: is there any way to make a high-quality copy, or is VHS my lot? I don't have a DVD recorder - is one necessary to make a reasonable copy?

DMC

Yes, its not much of a choice. Of course VHS is inferior to a DVD recording, but its upto you, if you feel the expense is necessary. If you really dont copy much, then there is no point.

watty

A good SVHS is cheap but tapes are very expensive, it is slightly better quality than some analogue in DVD recorders. Only a DVD made direct from the digital stream without re-encoding is same quality as live, which can't be done with any Sky receiver.

Many satellite channels use resolutions not part of Official DVD standard, so have to be re-encoded, reducing quality.

Only running the DVD recorder at the least compression / least recording time gives quality approaching the original and better than S-VHS. Poorer encoders on some DVD recorders and/or higher compression (longer recording time) gives poorer quality than S-VHS. There is little point now to S-VHS given that the tapes are up to 20x the cost of DVD blanks.

Make sure any analogue in DVD recorder has Hard drive, S-Video and RGB inputs. Then you can clip beginning & end & adverts if desired and use a higher quality encoder. Composite only input (even via scart) degrades the quality.

eirman

Just to clarify matters Watty ..... I use a scart cable between My Sky+ and my HD/DVD recorder. Will I get better results using a S-Video cable ?

ixtlan

SCART is best as long as...

1/ The DVD recorder is capable of recording RGB.
2/ The Sky box is set to RGB out
3/ The recorder is connected to the TV out port (since the VCR port does not send RGB). Since your TV should be using RGB you probably want the recorder to "pass through" the signal to the TV.

Are you already using RGB? Well if you look at the Sky menus, RGB gives a pretty smooth picture. If it's not RGB you will see a kind of "dot crawl" around the edges of text.

S-video is second best, but still better than plain composite (a single yellow cable)

Ix.

watty

ixtlan has answered clearer than I could myself. Perfect.

bpmurray

Thanks for the responses - I guess it confirmed what I suspected.

I already have a pretty good PC with a DVD burner, so I really wanted to copy to a DVD-RW which I could then edit & burn to a permanent DVD. The DVD-RW could then be reused. In other words, there's no need for a HD.

Now, I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but I suppose what I need is a DVD recorder with SCART (and S-Video for fallback). I see many machines for sale, some with ridiculously low prices. I can only assume that one gets what one pays for, but does anyone have any recommendations?

bpmurray

I've also seen things like the Dazzle video creator which will take the analog output and push it through USB - that'll get it into my laptop which can then be copied to the desktop with the software & burner. Are they any good?

ixtlan

This can be a complicated topic.

http://www.videohelp.com/ has a lot of info and probably more than you need.

I have a very cheap recorder I got from Amazon (which they no longer sell), but all I would say is don't spend too much.

Unfortunately DVD recorders are not as advanced as you might think. On a standard DVD you can only fit 2 hours of good quality. More than that is poor. One hour is very good quality.

You might buy a HD recorder where you can record lots in best quality but only the very expensive ones have the ability to transfer data across the network, so you are stuck with what will fit on a DVD anyhow!

Then there's the complexity of extracting the data from the DVD, editing it and burning it back. All possible, but you will spend a lot of time figuring it out. If you enjoy such things you will have fun!

As for the Dazzle, I'm not really familiar. It won't be RGB but it might simplify a lot of things and maybe it will have some nice software for what you want.

Ix.

watty

For Analogue video use EITHER a PCI TV card S-Video in with RGB to S-Video convertor if the Sky box doen't do S-Video.

OR use a Camcorder or dedicated Analogue to Firewire (DV) media bridge. (some camcorders can convert Analogue to DV without recording)

Forget USB for Analogue except for Audio.

All the the USB video products do basically worse than VHS quality.

slegs

ixtlan wrote:

As for the Dazzle, I'm not really familiar. It won't be RGB but it might simplify a lot of things and maybe it will have some nice software for what you want.

Ix.

Ive had the dazzle thing..stay away from it..lip synching is a huge issue

bpmurray

Thanks to everyone for the good information. I've decided to swap an external HD for my son's PCMCIA TV card, so I can copy to my laptop, dump on to the desktop, edit & burn to DVD. Slow, painful and awkward, I know, but at least it should work fine.

byte

Does the Sky box output RGB via the VCR Scart output?