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I don't know much about video recording.

I want to record some programs from home TV that receives signal from the normal coaxial cable.

I'm seen some VCR/DVD Recorders that record digital and air TV, I think they use HDMI port.

I've seen on internet USB TV Tuners that can be connected to laptop in USB port and in the other side connect the coaxial cable input, so I understand the TV signal would be shown in laptop display and I think some software should be use to say "Record" within laptop but I don't know.

May you suggest me a good options to do what I want please? less expensive the better.

Thanks in advance

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  • Perhaps it would help if you could elaborate on the purpose for recording. What exactly would you be recording from your television? Actual programs airing (like on large cable networks) or something from another feed?
    – John Barton
    Commented Aug 15, 2016 at 13:34
  • Hello John. I want to record from classic cable network source. The coaxial cable signal has some analogue channels and some digital channels. The digital channels can be seen since the TV has digital TV tuner inside. (I am not in USA, where I think you have full air digital tv)
    – Ger Cas
    Commented Aug 15, 2016 at 18:16
  • Kodi is free software that can rcord and time-shift free to air TV broadcasts. I don't know about the digital channels on the cable, but analogue certainly. kodi.tv
    – stib
    Commented Aug 16, 2016 at 15:43
  • Hello stib. Thanks for share about kodi. I see that can be installed on major operating systems to record live tv. But what hardware is needed to get the signal from cable network source into laptop in order kodi be able to handle it?
    – Ger Cas
    Commented Aug 16, 2016 at 19:47

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Personally I use Pinnacle Studio to record the TV shows. I have used it to record over a 100 hours of TV footage till now and I'm pretty happy with it.

What You Need

  • TV Tuner
  • Software to record.

For the card you can buy Pinnacle TV Tuner (~ $70), but any compatible card will do. Many good cards are available for a lower price. Just make sure it has a coaxial cable input.

Pinnacle Studio comes along with the card if you buy that. This software can be used to record/edit videos. Recording is straightforward. You can select the encoding format, resolution, quality and begin recording. You can also schedule TV recordings to record when you are not at home.

But once you have the driver for card, the rest is easy. You can use any software to record the feed (including VLC player).

The only thing to keep in mind is storage. More often than not, live recording won't have the best encoding used, so it will take up a lot of space. To take care of storage problems I record in HD only if really necessary. Otherwise I would need additional tools to re-encode in high compression formats (like h264 or h265). Use ffmpeg or Handbrake for that.

Good luck!

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