Monday, January 02, 2006

Bring your cable TV along...

Watch your cable tv (that you paid for) on your way to work and back !!!

I was sick of paying for Cable TV and not being able to watch it most of the time. I pay for 24 hrs , but by the time i get home and prepare to sleep , i get to watch only an hour. In other words I wasted the other 23 hours. Putting cable programmes on my VCR is NOT a solution as i am hardly home due to my work. This was until I got my G5 IPOD video !

Now I just bring alondg my IPOD and watch programmes that I have already paid for in the train on my way to work.

You will need a video grabber ( a usb or pci card that converts video out from your cable to your PC)

This is how you do it...


1) Download this freeware (VCL media player)
http://www.videolan.org/

2) Click file and select "Open capture device"

3) Select directshow (only for PCs not macs)

4) Click the two refesh device buttons

5) select your capture device for video and audio

6) click stream output

7) select settings for steamoutput

8) set file you want to save as MP4

9) select codec as MP4

VERY IMPORTANT
set video codec to mp4v and audio to mp4a
The video bit steam MUST BE BELOW 700 (else itunes will not copy it on ipod)
The audio bit stream must be set to 64 bits and must be two channels (even if your input is one channel)



10) click ok and the setting widows close.

11) click okay one more time and it starts to capture

Pls note
  • During capture you see noting...no previews
  • the program looks frozen but it is actually dumping the video stream to file.
  • to see if programme is active keep refreshing the file size of you capture file. it should be changing all the time.
  • to stop hit the stop button on VLC media player.
  • after stopping wait for a few minutes before using itunes to copy. If capture time is long (>1 hour)
  • this is to allow VLC to do post processing (the programme does not indicate its busy)

The VLC also convert DVD and VCDs ... but make sure the media belongs to you !
(under copyright 'fairuse' clause, you can make 1 copy for back up only)

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html




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