Are media PCs good for video editing?

[Arkitech]

I've been looking around for a way to easily record cable/satellite feeds, edit out the commercials and burn the video to a DVD. Initially I thought about buying a replayTV and using the built in ethernet port to transfer the video to a PC and then edit the clips and burn to a disk. But now I'm seeing a lot companies offering media PCs that claim they can do the same functions as PVR. I've been kind of skeptical about it because I've read some pretty negative reviews on those type of machines, but since that was more than a year ago I'm wondering if the current crop of media PCs might be worth looking into.


anyone here have any experience with those kind of PCs? Are they worth looking into?


thanks for any feedback

 

[Dman877]

All you need is a video capture/TV card. ATI, Leadtek, Hauppage, etc make them. It's like ~50$, you install it in a PCI slot, hook up your coax, and you're good-to-go. They all come with software bundles for recording TV shows at preset times. You will need a CD burner though (or a dvd burner) and a good burning package like Nero. Total cost for the tv card, software, and burner is maybe 150$ atm.

EDIT: For cutting out commercials, you'll need some video editing stuff which I have no experience with. Add another 50$ I'm sure...

 

[Duvie]

I got myself a Radeon 8500DV All-in-Wonder card....I then go from the back of my sat box which has svideo through a port hole I built in the wall fro mthe family room to the office and then to the PC....I also ran RCA audio out (left and right), but with theright cables I could use a DD5.1 coax cable as well to my 8500DV...I rarley buy the DD5.1 feeds of the sat TV so I see no use....

I can capture highest mpeg2 (DVD) settings with ease as it barely uses 1/3 for my cpu power......In editing you will not want capture to mpeg2 on the fly (a lossy format), instead you will want to capture to a raw avi file (a loseless)...be warned it is a large file for small amount of time, so you need big drives and IMO to use NTFS formatting on the HDD so no win98. It is also extremely dependent on the drive systems to be able to capture large data without dropping a frame. With current cpu speeds this will be the fault of HDDS more so then cpus. NIce defragged drives with plenty of space. Our PVR box basicaly has a 80gb drive built in but it ofcourse captures to a mpeg2 compressed format to hold more....

Then you take the raw avi file to a editing program like pinnacle studio 8.8 and edit out commercials, add transitions, titles, menus (active or not) etc....Could even lay an audio track over or edit volume, take out curse words,etc...Once done hit make movie and set up DVD standard and it will make the vob files and everything. When completed "rendering" then just use your favorite burner app.


I would say stay away from ATI TV tuner and when you want the full function with all the right cable inputs most of the TV tuner alone cards blow....When you start looking at the full deal cards you can pay 100-150 range...ATI makes AIW cards all the way up to 300+ range but this is mainly cause they are great gaming cards as well (IE like the 9800) I say find a nice used Radeon 8500DV like mine as you can likely get it in the 100-120 range with the remote and it has some great features they removed from the 128mb Radeon 8500 AIW version that came in later. ATI will come bundled with some software but I can't remember which since I got my pinnacle studio right out of the gate...look to pay 90-100 for that....


I have tried the hauppagge PVR....NOT IMPRESSED...does not compare to the ATI AIW line of 8500 or greater in functionality, use, and the fact you are getting a decent gaming card or better...

I have not tried the leadtek but heard it is good...This may be your best optin if you like the vid card you already have....I still don't think anything is has good as the ATI card in this range...IMO...