What kind of rig is use to record all those top gear episodes?

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marc25

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I'm curious to know what kind of computer and what setup is used to record the Top Gear episodes listed on final gear.

I've assemble a HTPC a few month ago (same week as the release of the 1080P special episode of top gear :D). The playback performance is perfect, the polar challenge in full resolution run smooth and the image is awsome on my 42'' LCD. However, the recording performance of this computer is good but not great. The quality of my record are far from those i've seen on this site.

I'm very interested to know what hardware is use to record those emission (tv-tuner card brand and model), computer spec, how everything is hooked together and what programs are used.

For those who may have sugestions for me, here's my setup:

my HTPC:

Mobo: Biostar Tforce TA690G with amd 690g chipset and ATI Radeon X1250 On-Board Graphic (great MoBo for this application especialy with the HDMI connector)
Processor: AMD athlon 64 x2 3600+
Memory: Mushkin PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 (512MB are use for the on-board graphic card)
Primary HD: 500Go Western Digital Caviar GP (Green Power)
Secondary HD: 500Go Western Digital Caviar SE
Optical drive: Sony DRU-830
PSU: Seasonic S12 330w
TV-tuner: Hauppauge HVR-1600 MCE
Wireless adaptor: D-Link DWL-G520
Case : ThermalTake LanBox lite

Everything run stock (no overclocking)

My 42'' Sharp Aquos LCD tv is connect to the HTPC using high quality monster HDMI cable, but since i've never seen a Tv-Tuner card with a HDMI input, my HTPC is connected to the digital decoder of my cable company using good quality (monster) cable a s-video cable and white/red audio component cable.

I use windows xp media center to record television program.

Also, I plan to install a Blu-Ray Driver as soon as price drop a bit, can anybody tell me if any upgrade will be necessary to play Blu-ray disc smoothly? Can my on-board graphic card with his 512mb shared memory can handle the job or should i plan a video card as well?
 
marc25 said:
my HTPC is connected to the digital decoder of my cable company using good quality (monster) cable a s-video cable and white/red audio component cable.
Click to expand...

I don't really know much about video encoding, but audio related: I was always told white/red component cables are not good quality. And personally I didn't have good experiences with s-video...

But then again, what do I know? :)
 
jensked said:
I don't really know much about video encoding, but audio related: I was always told white/red component cables are not good quality. And personally I didn't have good experiences with s-video...
Click to expand...

For audio? I'm sorry, but the only better option is to use balanced ins/outs. Good luck finding consumer grade equipment with that. ;)
 
Considering the speed and quality the releases get dished out at, i'd say the machines used are MONSTROUS. The video quality speaks of 2 pass encoding, and to be able to do that and release within 15 minutes of an episode finishing airing is just inhuman. If it's even possible, the first pass has to be done on the fly while it's being recorded, and then the second pass along with audio done on some space-borne supercomputer.
 
IceBone said:
Considering the speed and quality the releases get dished out at, i'd say the machines used are MONSTROUS.
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nope most of them are normal pc's
they just record pieces of 5-10min length, encode them (on another pc) and stitch them together at the end
 
Hmm, interesting. So they have the capture software set to segment every so and so minutes. That would still leave a lot of room with guesstimating the final file size and they're usually spot on. I have doubts about this.
 
IceBone said:
Considering the speed and quality the releases get dished out at, i'd say the machines used are MONSTROUS. The video quality speaks of 2 pass encoding, and to be able to do that and release within 15 minutes of an episode finishing airing is just inhuman. If it's even possible, the first pass has to be done on the fly while it's being recorded, and then the second pass along with audio done on some space-borne supercomputer.
Click to expand...

I use Q6600 @ 4.3 GHZ (-62c SS phase change cooling) for the videos that I have done for www.motorworld.net

After changing to 2 pass Xvid encoding (thanks to your welcome advice Icebone) and DVB-S TS source file I managed last nights 5th gear (45 min show) in under 15 mins, from memory the first pass was 5 minutes and the second was 7 minutes, the whole thing takes a bit longer though as you have to remove the adverts first.

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Woah... Takes about 1:1 for pass 2 on my athlon 64 3000+ :(

Might have something to do with my codec optimizations, though...
 
fluke667 said:
nope most of them are normal pc's
they just record pieces of 5-10min length, encode them (on another pc) and stitch them together at the end
Click to expand...

Although that is banned in the scene...

Anyway, don't use MCE, use some other prog like progdvb or the very excellent dvbviewer. They can capture the raw transport stream or prepackage it in mpegs.
Could also be that you use a shitty mpeg2 decoder.
 
I use dgindex with avisynth, which is what the scene uses last time i checked.
 
Buba said:
or the very excellent dvbviewer.
Click to expand...

Yep, thats what I use with a Technotrend S2-3200 HDTV card + CAM, which I also use for getting BBCHD and Sky Movies along with a T-REX Supermodule.

You also need the CAM and T-Rex for getting channel five off the Astra Satellite as although its a free channel, they still encrypt it to stop people from outside the UK from viewing it. You can of course also get it on freeview but I have found that not to be quite as stable as from Astra.
 
I've always liked the idea of getting a DVB-C card and connecting it up to my Virgin Media connection.

Would be easy enough to get the cable split from my broadband connection, but I've heard it is very hard to actually receive anything because of the card, and the way it is linked to the set-top-box.
 
IceBone said:
Considering the speed and quality the releases get dished out at, i'd say the machines used are MONSTROUS. The video quality speaks of 2 pass encoding, and to be able to do that and release within 15 minutes of an episode finishing airing is just inhuman. If it's even possible, the first pass has to be done on the fly while it's being recorded, and then the second pass along with audio done on some space-borne supercomputer.
Click to expand...
Bingo.

First encode is done on the fly on a box sitting somewhere on a 100mbit line and it's all done remotely.
 
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