I will shortly be getting Comcast cables high def with hard drive cable box (Motorola DCT6208) and want a way to record tv shows and movies etc from the cable box or archive the cable box's hard drive when it gets full. I want the best quality, obviously, but have since found out that Hollywood has made it impossible to make a digital to digital recording by preventing manufactures to put digital inputs on the dvd recorders. So is my next best option using the component cables? Are there any good dvd recorders that have these inputs? Otherwise I am guessing I will have to use S-video. Are there encryption issues with the cable channels being recorded on the dvd player similar to the old macrovision crap when dubbing VCR tapes? Finally, does it make since to get a dvd player with a hard drive if the cable box has one? I am thinking yes, because I am pretty sure the cable box (hollywood again) won't let you edit out commercials once recorded to the hard drive.
thanks
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Posted on
Jason,
It wouldn't matter if you had a DVD recorder with component inputs or not. All DVD's (Yes even the commercial DVD's) are recorded in 480i not 480p. S-video provides a quite good copy from most all recorders.
The only digital constraints are in accordance with the 5C criteria. Only pay-per-view is currently flagged copy none (and not all of those yet). HBO has stated that they intend to set copy once flags for most of their content but keep in mind this will never prevent an analog copy, only digital copies.
I agree a DVD recorder with a hard drive is a must for the reason you stated.
To adress an earlier point you made about it being impossible to make a digital copy. Actually you can purchase a digital VCR and make digital copies via firewire connections. These are the devices for which the 5C flag was created.