[fredfillis]

I'm about to have a crack at XBMC on the Shuttle XS35GS V3 either under Linux or possibly XBMCbuntu. But before I do this, I need to understand how (or if?) I would go about replicating the following functionality.

I have a satellite provider PVR type box and occasionally want to save something recorded on that box. The only way I can get it off right now is to play it to a DVD recorder via composite, burn to DVD-RW and clean up on the PC then copy it back to my shared media drive. Clearly a pain in the ass.

I'd like to be able to do this with my future HTPC but I'm not sure what hardware I would need (and it would probably need to be external USB coz it won't fit in the Shuttle) nor what software I'd need to add. I have no intention of using the HTPC / XBMC as a PVR otherwise, just for this function probably once a month or thereabouts.

I've read some of the stuff about PVR / XBMC and am more confused that when I started reading.

Any ideas?

[fredfillis]

No takers?

Can someone at least help me out with this question. I have an EasyCAP USB Video Capture Device, would this be seen by a PVR as a tv tuner?

[artrafael]

Connect your PVR to your USB video capture device using composite cables (if available on your PVR and EasyCap, use S-video instead for the video connection). You can run something like mencoder on your Linux PC while playing back the recording on the PVR. The output is stored as a video file on your hard disk.

Found this via Google (YMMV depending on your EasyCap model, Linux distro, etc.): http://forum.easycap.co.uk/index.php/topic,448.0.html

Optionally, you can use something like avidemux to subsequently edit out the extraneous stuff such as ads. Name and locate the video file appropriately and you can then scan it into your XBMC video library.