[iBook] Recording TV to Mac

[charlesp at ksu.edu]

If you're wanting to capture video, then you need something between the
video source (Direct TV, for instance) and the computer that captures
video and digitizes it. I have an AlchemyTV DVR capture card in my G5
that does a terrific job. I capture in Motion JPGA at 640 by 480 and it
looks pretty good--no dropped frames, sound in synch and so on. The
stuff I want to "archive," I send into iDVD and burn it. The other
stuff, I watch and then discard. Much like I would imagine one would do
with a Tivo. The files are somewhat hefty at around 6Gb per half-hour,
so I store on an external hard drive.

Since you're trying to get it into an iBook, there's no slot for a video
capture card, but Elgato makes a video capture box called EyeTV or
something like that. It needs USB 2.0, I'm sure or you're going to be
dropping frames like crazy. There are other brands including one from
the folks who made my video capture card, Miglia. They make a device
called EvolutionTV, that grabs and digitizes through USB 2.0. Here's
the link: http://www.miglia.com/products/video/evolutiontv/index.html

Or, you could get Tivo.

Or, you could (as has been suggested) get a DVD burner. But unless you
want to have a bunch of once-watched DVDs laying around, the video
capture method might work better. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Charles Pearce
charlesp at ksu.edu