Recording the DCTV Hotel Channel

[wmacarter]

Has anybody figured out a way to record the DCTV hotel channel.  Not the bumpers that are available at their DCTV site but, the rest of the programming.  If I could record it, I would not have to stay in my room and watch it, if I missed a panel. The TV's in the hotel rooms are locked down with no way to hook in a recorder.  Youtube is a option

Comments

[acciochocolate]

I like the idea of iTunes. Or YouTube. There might a question of copyrights and especially of mechanical royalties, however.

[gm3fan4u]

If you are going to use it for personal viewing, it should interfear with copyright blah blah etc. I take my laptop on vacation with me and use it as my DVR. I have a USB TV tuner that I plug in, then I connect the cable TV coax (from the hotel/resort TV) into the USB tuner, launch Windows Media Center (Windows 7) then scan the channels. Once I find the channel I want, then I'll simply record the times I want.

[svarney99]

Does this work? What hotels have you this at? If it works at the Weston, I may have to give it a try this year.

[wmacarter]

What kind of USB TV tuner do you have? I brought a TIVO once and scanned for channels and found nothing, I figure they were scramble. I don't remember a cable box per say. There were two boxes. One mounted on the TV and one on the back of the dresser it was sitting on

[gm3fan4u]

I use the Haupppauge WinTV-HVR 950Q. I bought it at Best Buy last year. I've tried different cable connections. Sometimes I could only get it to work when I used the coax coming from the set top box to the TV, and sometimes I had to use the coax that goes to the set top box to scan and find channels. Of course, every hotel can be different and it may or may not work at your hotel. I will warn you that it requires a lot of gigs to record shows.

[crazeyal]

http://web.dragoncontv.com/

[wmacarter]

http://web.dragoncontv.com/ only has the bumpers, not the rest of it.

[ext_1316495]

You should keep an eye on YouTube over the next week or so ... just sayin' ;)

[richardlt]

I *tried* to do that last year with a good old VCR. Unfortunately, the coax cable into the back of the TV at the Westin had some sort of guard on it that prevented it from being easily removed. Nor did I have the proper tools to try and remove it, though I suspect needle-nose pliers are a requirement. I didn't think to check at the wall to see if it was easily removed from there, or if it was accessible without moving the big, huge chest of drawers that the TV was sitting on. (It's hard enough to find an easy to access grounded outlet. Pack an extension cord.)

But since this is for your own enjoyment and not for resale, *right*, you might consider just aiming a video camera at the TV. The quality will be horrible, but it'll be better than nothing. Of course, if it's a CRT, then you'll have that annoying rolling scan line to give you a headache.