Recording from sky digital to my laptop

[TomWilko]

I am looking to run my standard Sky digital box through my laptop as I need to record some upcoming TV for purposes of a sport I do (World championship swimming.)

How would I go about recording from such a source? I know going from a standard TV aerial would be just requiring a WinTV card or something similar, could I use this for Sky?

Any ideas or tips would be very much appreciated. If you could point me in the direction of the exact hardware I would need it would also be very useful.

Thanks,

Tom

[Jonny M]

You need to use the outputs on the Sky box into the inputs on the TV card. For this you don't even need a TV card, a decent quality capture card will be better for you.

[TomWilko]

Any specific TV cards?

[TomWilko]

Would any of these work? Sky digital to PC.

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_usb2.html

or

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_usb.html

And if so I presume the USB2 would be the recommended one?

[autopilot]

Is the signal not scrambled on some/all channels though? I did not think you could do that, but it might just be the movies etc.

[TomWilko]

It's just the movie channels as far as I am aware.

I now own a Win TV USB but am clueless as to what cable I need to use to connect the Digi-box to the TV Card...does it have something to do with the RF outputs on the back of the digi box?

[Carlh]

Normally you would connect the RF1 output of the Sky box using a normal RF cable to the RF input of the Win TV Usb device.

You may need to make sure that the RF power output is enabled in the sky setup menu - menu 1 then 4 if I recall correctly (could be wrong tho as I am working atm and unable to check)

You should be ok recording the majority of programs - however the movie channels and PPV are all encrypted and therefore wont record correctly

[autopilot]

the movie channels and PPV are all encrypted and therefore wont record correctly

I have a friend who can get around it and record them with some special software, but i am guessing it not exactly legal.