OT: Recording TV in Windows 7

In the distant past I've used Windows Movie Maker to edit small videos I've captured on a video camera and it seemed to work OK. I never did anything serious and never tried to put anything on DVD using the writing software that came in Windows. In general, I hate the fact that I can't find anything because MS OS's have sprouted so many things I don't really want.

Over the last few days I thought I would try to be normal and use the stuff built in to Windows 7, so I got my trusty, pretty old, KWorld usb DTV receiver, found some drivers on the net and got it receiving. All pretty good, so I set it to record a documentary about Leonard Cohen. It recorded fine, and turned out to be interesting eg in the way the PA system was a disaster and the band appeared to be trying to refund money in various European countries in pre-Euro currencies that they didn't understand.

So I thought I'll put it on to DVD using the various Microsoft Tools.

Looked at Windows DVD Maker, but that seemed to have no editing facilities, so installed Windows Live to get Movie Maker.

Ran Movie Maker, found where they had hidden all the controls in this version and "topped and tailed" the recording.

The options in Movie maker included "DVD", so I chose that. Some hours later I was presented with a wmv file, which seemed a bit odd. It also appeared that Movie Maker doesn't hook into the writing software, so I loaded Windows DVD Maker again and set that to produce a DVD. This then embarked on another multi-hour conversion process but threw a DVD out at the end. First time I've used a dual layer DVD, so that was good.

Unfortunately, when I played it, the audio and the lips were about a sentence out of sync, so it's completely useless. The whole process had taken from before lunch until some time at night after I'd gone to bed.

Searching through the system to find the various files, it seems that the original .wtv file is in sync, but the .wmv file produced from it is hopelessly out. I think the DVD has about the same timing problem.

I'm trying this on a 2.2GHz laptop with 2Gigs of ram

There are other weird things about the TV facilities in Win 7. If I watch TV and then record a bit, opening Media Player gives me one programme, Media Center gives a different one. I assume that this is because one points at the automatic "pause while watching" recording, whereas the other points at the wanted recording.

Has anyone else tried this? Did it work? Did you make any sense of any of it?

Reply to
Bill
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If you are doing this on pc why not convert to mp4 after editing, and save a lot of time and space? There are also a number of video mastering suites you can download free trials of; I tried this one for a while, though I mainly just strip sound from vob files from a dvdr and compress (for which I now find the totally free Audacity beta excellent), so I haven't played with the full editing and export capabilities:

formatting link
is a minefield getting all the formats, codexes, right, and it even comes down to makes of discs your burner happens to like. I find for example that with dvr-rw discs I shuttle between the laptop and dvdr, I have to periodically fully erase, fully format, and fully erase again on the laptop with Nero, before the dvdr will accept them again. If I erase them on the dvdr, the laptop does not see any disc in its drive. Once one finds out what does work it is all pretty straight forward, and for general compiling and burning once your disc is recognised, the free CDBurnerXP is fine.

AV Forums

formatting link
is a good place to ask more detailed questions.

S
Reply to
Spamlet

In message , Spamlet writes

Yes, I have in the distant past navigated through various programs and formats and produced videos that play on the PC and I think I've got one or two onto DVD's. I do appreciate the reply and will look at that converter that you mentioned in the bit I snipped. I have used "Super" in the past.

But the real point is that I would ideally like my OS to be just that and not burdened with a load of applications.

However, as Windows 7 seems to include a load of applications including a Video recording feature that has its own "Recorded TV" folder, a simple Video Editor and a basic video authoring tool, it seems odd that they work in such a weird way with two huge file conversions. Having done the two conversions, and followed the obvious path for a basic function that seems to be included as part of Win 7, it seems even odder that it doesn't actually work.

It just looks as though someone in Microsoft Towers said we want Win 7 to be able to watch, record and output video onto DVD and put in place software to achieve that in theory. In practice here it takes hours to produce what is effectively nonsense.

Looking further afield at Microsoft forums, it seems as though it doesn't work without third party software, but it would be useful to know if anyone else here had tried or whether I was doing something stupid.

The point about DVD-RW's was well worth knowing. I must try to check what I'm erasing them on and how I'm doing it.

Reply to
Bill

To be fair to MS (never thought I'd see myself writing that!) they can't really win as they soon fall foul of competition rules if they try to include too much as standard. It certainly is a pain to have to keep looking for several extra bits of program to do things that appear at first glance to be pretty basic - like burning a cd with the built in drive!

VLC Media player is also a handy freebie that has lots of format recognising capabilities too, and often sees things that WMP doesn't (on XP at any rate).

I should have a chat about it on the AV forum if I were you: they have usually been able to point me in the right direction.

Cheers,

S
Reply to
Spamlet

In message , Spamlet writes

I've been ploughing through some MS forums and it looks to me as if the "Live Movie Maker 2011" is broken. Certainly the responses from what look like MS employees to questions about sync problems seem to ask the complainants for data to research. That actually impresses me. Now that I've got the machine settled and doing its bizarre dual file conversion, it is all set up by Win 7 default with Movie Maker automatically calling DVD Maker, and with the directories set up as though this was what the Win 7 developers intended. I'd still argue that the OS should just be an OS and cost pennies, but I am getting old.

Yes, I use VLC Media Player all the time on XP. I haven't installed it yet on Win 7 - I must try it and check that it works. I'm only playing with Win 7 because friends have been pushed on to it by machine failures, and I do seem to be encountering more quirks than I expected.

I will go and have a lurk when I have time. You wouldn't believe how long these file conversions take.

Many thanks for the interest shown in this. It looks as though few others have tried to turn their Windows 7 into a video recorder.

Reply to
Bill

My linux works well with hauppage usb TV dongle and Me-TV, and me wifes mac is brilliant with EYE-TV card and software.

I tend to use totem rather than VLC on the linux tho, for replay.

VLC on the mac

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Or, if you're doing it on a PC why not sell the piece of crap and get a proper computer with a proper OS?

Reply to
Steve Firth

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