Cheap way to record TV

[Edwin Street]

Hi,

My old Panasonic miniDV camera broke (Panasonic PV DV103), and although it was low quality at recording video, it was great at capturing TV through the RCA output ports on the back of the TV, into the mini headphone jack on the camera.

I don't need the camera part of it anymore because I've since upgraded, but now I can't capture the TV.

Can you suggest a low-price camera that can record TV or something else that might record onto a hard drive. What I liked about the tape format is that it captured at 25MB/s and Stereo 48 kHz (DV-PAL) compared to a hard drive recorder that captures at a lower bitrate.

[Mark Ahrens]

If you have a DVR cable box with a firewire port you can tap into it and capture a MTS stream then transcode it.
DVR->Firewire->Laptop->AVCap or DVcap application->MPEG Stremclip

[Kevin McRoberts]

Since going tapeless, I've kept my Canon HV30 to use as a MiniDV/HDV deck, analog-to-digital recorder, and bridge to capture analog via firewire. Once or twice it's even served as a decent camera for streaming.

The Vixia HV line were very nice cameras for their day and are cheap as all getout now.

[Ervin Farkas]

Most old Sony D8 or mini DV cameras will do it, you can pick one up on eBay for $100, or ask around, friends/relatives might have an unused one.

TV output to analog inputs (make sure you get the special 4-prong Sony 3.5mm cable with the cam) > firewire out to your PC and record away.

Another way to do it is a small USB device that digitizes your analog video, http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/833518-REG/Hauppauge_610_USB_Live2_Analog_Video_Digitizer.html or similar.