JEBEDIAH said:
I have HDTV service with my cable company, which of course goes from my
cable box to my TV. Can I record a pure HDTV signal with one of these
VIVO cards? Also, would it be possible to pass through the videocard, so
I can record HDTV and output it to my television at the same time?
When talking HD it's important to say what country you are in as the HD
standards differ widely around the world, and what's easy in one place is
difficult or impossible in another due to differing standards.
If you're in the US the answer is "no" to your first question and "maybe" to
your second.
The remainder of this post assumes you're in the US.
In principle it is possible to make an nvidia-based "personal cinema" board
with an HD tuner, but in practice nobody has made one available for
purchase.
To record HD in the US you need an HD tuner board (there's no other way to
record it on a PC than via a tuner unless you want to pay for a very
expensive professional-grade component capture board). If you're recording
off of cable you will be able to get only the unencrypted HD channels and
to do that you'll need a board that supports a standard called "QAM" in
both its hardware and its software (the Dvico Fusion boards support it in
both, the ATI HDTV Wonder has the necessary hardware but the software
doesn't make use of it so you can't record HD Cable on the ATI board). As
for display on a TV, that depends on the TV--if it has component inputs
then most modern video boards can provide component out either directly or
via an adapter. If it has DVI or HDMI but no component then it's more
iffy--720p you should be able to do but it may require some tweaking of
your video board settings using Powerstrip or a similar utility to find
settings that your set likes. 1080i will be more difficult and may be
impossible with some boards.
