Beyond TV and Direct TV HD?

[Mormegil]

I am a long time SnapStream user, however my current setup is almost 5 years old, and I want to build a new system exclusively for my Beyond TV. I also have direct TV and they have reasently added a butt load of HD Channels. So I have 3 questions.

Is there a way to get HD single in HD from Direct TV, even if I need new hardware, and need a differant tunner from Direct TV. My current tunner is a 5 year old RCA.?

What is the best Cappture card for doning HD and standard video?

Can I get this all out to my HD TV which at the moment I am sending out through a VGA Connector, but have 2 avalible HDMI's?

Hope someone can help, I want to make this my Christmas poject this year.

[grandpaken]

If you want to record DirecTV HD the only option is to lease a new HR20 or HR21 receiver. Using a H20 you can capture via S-video or composite to BTV but it will be a SD downrez. There are currently no consumer level HD capture cards using component or HDMI.

[Darkk]

Originally Posted by grandpaken

If you want to record DirecTV HD the only option is to lease a new HR20 or HR21 receiver. Using a H20 you can capture via S-video or composite to BTV but it will be a SD downrez. There are currently no consumer level HD capture cards using component or HDMI.

Which is a shame for satellite companies to have this kind of restriction and no HD/HDMI capture cards available. I wish they offer a satellite card that we can put in our PCs and let BeyondTV talk to it directly. That way video capture wouldn't be necessary since it'll simply write the video stream to the hard drive. The only thing that is preventing this wonderful marriage from happening is copy protection issues. Granted, Vista DRM is supposed to address this but with so many quirks in Vista I am not touching it with a 10 foot pole.

Cable card is supposed to be the wave of the future but it's getting a very slow start due to technical issues. Reasons or another certain cable cards will only work with certain cable systems, even it's with the same company!

Right now I am getting HD via OTA which works fine in my area. Granted, it would be nice to get HD from cable in BeyondTV but until cable card issues gets resolved I'm stuck with my current setup.

All of this may change later on when we get our shows from the net via subscriptions. Only gripe is that you have to use their players due to copy protection crap. But I was able to watch stuff from ABC in full HD off the net which is nice. Still, I want a all-in-one package and let BeyondTV deal with it all. Maybe in the future, Snapstream could get involved with those networks and license the plug-ins to work with BeyondTV. Another gripe I just now remember about their players is that you can't skip commericals!

Darkk