Using PC as a DVD recorder?

[scredsfan]

I've been looking into getting a DVD recorder but I wanted to first see about using our laptop PC as a DVD recorder. Has anyone been able to connect their 622 to a PC and record from the DVR to the PC? I've seen some posts about having to get a TV tuner for the laptop in order to watch TV on it, but I haven't seen anything about making recordings.

[langlin]

I've done it with a 622 and a pc tv tuner card, it works but the quality sucks by the time you get it to DVD. Watchable but poor.

[bigshew]

I echo what langlin said and add that it can be very slow. Much simpler to get a standalone DVD recorder. They're some cheap one's available now.

[scooper]

Depends on what you are looking for.

I've been doing this literally for years - the tradeoff for hq recordings is lots of space ( at least when digitizing an NTSC source ). I've been pretty successful using the Hauppauge WinPVR 250 and most recently the WinHVR1600. The 1600 is a dual tuner card - one tuner does analog TV/cable, the other does ATSC / clear QAM. There's no way to adjust the recording quality on the digital (it basically records the bitstream of the program), but analog offers a multitude of presets of various quality settings, as well as the ability to customize settings.