happauge or leadtek tuner card?

[dbarton]

I want to get a pvr.

I want somewhat small files to end up with, but good quality.

Any thoughts overall between the Happauge pvr 250 or Leadtek 2000xp?

 

[MDE]

Have you considered the ATI TV Wonder VE\Pro? I have a VE and I love it.

 

[Muck]

I've heard the Leadtek is better. But I've never used the Happauge.

The Asus TV Tuner card whoops them both, though. If you can find one of those (not the FM card), do not hesitate. It is excellent.

 

[Bonesdad]

Originally posted by: Muck
I've heard the Leadtek is better. But I've never used the Happauge.

The Asus TV Tuner card whoops them both, though. If you can find one of those (not the FM card), do not hesitate. It is excellent.

Agreed! Its pretty impossible to find now tho, dont know why.

 

[Cerb]

I've used the happauge, and I'd say go with the Leadtek.

 

[ViRGE]

Leadtek owner and loving it.

 

[MonstaThrilla]

I had the Hauppauge, and I would not recommend it. Not very good software, and whenever I used it WinXP refused to shutdown cleanly at the end of the day.

 

[Shooters]

Had a Hauppauge, now have a Leadtek. Go for the Leadtek.

 

[BigJelly]

Originally posted by: dbarton
I want to get a pvr.

I want somewhat small files to end up with, but good quality.

Any thoughts overall between the Happauge pvr 250 or Leadtek 2000xp?

get the leadtek tuner card and use virtual dub, its free video encoding software, to get good quality and smaller sized video files
What i do with my Leadtek 2000XP Deluxe is record as uncompressed avi (~15Gigs per hour) then encode it with mp3 codec (56Kbit/s) and divx 5.03 video codec (@400kbps) via virtual dub (averages out to about 3.35 megs per minute--based off a 20.5 minute TV show being 68.6megs)

 

[dbarton]

Why not just record straight to divx avi files? Works, although I did have some audio video sync issues.

 

[BigJelly]

Originally posted by: dbarton
Why not just record straight to divx avi files? Works, although I did have some audio video sync issues.

like you, if i record to divx avi i will have audio/video sync issues so i would use virtual dub to fix them; therefore, i'd use virtual dub either way. So i guess i record as uncompressed as a prefrense.

FYI virtual dub will fix audio/video sync issues by changing the video frame rates:
if the video is ahead of the audio, decrease the frame rate (changes by the thousandth of a second .001)
if the video is behind of the audio, increase the frame rate

 

[capricorn]

Originally posted by: dbarton
Why not just record straight to divx avi files? Works, although I did have some audio video sync issues.

I was going to suggest the same thing. I think I added DivX 5.05 as an encoding scheme in LeadTek's PVR setup. I get about 300 MB for 30 mins of audio/video, with decent quality. Not perfect, but decent.

-cap

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: dbarton
Why not just record straight to divx avi files?

...because....

1. We don't know what kind of hardware he's using. You need some decent CPU power for that.

2. Harder to edit.

3. Shittty quality.

The Hauppage has hardware MPEG2 encoding. The leadtek does not. If you're just looking to record some shows for later viewing, and you've got a relatively weak CPU (XP2000 or less) the PVR 250 would be better. I'm biased though....as all the on the fly MPEG1/2 encoding I've seen from these cards has looked like a$$. But, its probably your best bet if you're just looking for a VCR.

If you want high quality captures that you will edit and archive/encode to Xvid/Divx, then save your money and get the Leadtek. Or get one of the newer 10 bit cards that Asus, Prolink, MSI has out right now. I've got a Prolink XCapture, and the images produced by the 10 bit card is noticably better than my Leadtek...much more detail.

 

[odog]

had two different hauppauge's both sucked in comparison to the leadtek.. the leadtek has some drivers issues, but overall is a much better product and a far better price.


no experience with the MSI or asus, both which make tuners with 10-bit decoders. these supposedly give the best quality of video available.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: chocoruacal

Originally posted by: dbarton
Why not just record straight to divx avi files?

...because....

1. We don't know what kind of hardware he's using. You need some decent CPU power for that.

2. Harder to edit.

3. Shittty quality.

Not if done right, though you need around a 1600+ to get it done real-time; and that's not counting the potentially HD transfers with the raw video and DivX writes.

The Hauppage has hardware MPEG2 encoding. The leadtek does not. If you're just looking to record some shows for later viewing, and you've got a relatively weak CPU (XP2000 or less) the PVR 250 would be better. I'm biased though....as all the on the fly MPEG1/2 encoding I've seen from these cards has looked like a$$. But, its probably your best bet if you're just looking for a VCR.

If you want high quality captures that you will edit and archive/encode to Xvid/Divx, then save your money and get the Leadtek. Or get one of the newer 10 bit cards that Asus, Prolink, MSI has out right now. I've got a Prolink XCapture, and the images produced by the 10 bit card is noticably better than my Leadtek...much more detail.

 

[lchyi]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Leadtek owner and loving it.

 

[lchyi]

crap dp'ed again... not my day

 

[dbarton]

Originally posted by: BigJelly

Originally posted by: dbarton
Why not just record straight to divx avi files? Works, although I did have some audio video sync issues.

like you, if i record to divx avi i will have audio/video sync issues

So have you tried this? Maybe you wont have sync issues, even if I did.. Be nice to save a step wouldn't it?

 

[BigJelly]

Originally posted by: dbarton

Originally posted by: BigJelly

Originally posted by: dbarton
Why not just record straight to divx avi files? Works, although I did have some audio video sync issues.

like you, if i record to divx avi i will have audio/video sync issues

So have you tried this? Maybe you wont have sync issues, even if I did.. Be nice to save a step wouldn't it?

tried it and noticed a change in quality. I can encode at ~97FPS so at 30FPS record it takes one-third of the show length. I'm not saying my way is the best/most efficient but it just makes it easier (for me), it's quick (enough for me), and i can see a difference in quality.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Shooters
Had a Hauppauge, now have a Leadtek. Go for the Leadtek.

I've used Hauppauge's PVR-PCI and now their PVR-350. The thing with them is that they do MPEG2 encoding in the hardware, not software like just about every other PVR card on the market, as far as I know. However, Hauppauge is not well known for being able to write decent drivers. WinTV PVR forum.

 

[gumsguy]

The new Leadtek Expert model has the 10-bit Connexant chip and is a beauty.

Very good picture quality, and the software runs rings around the others I have
tried. I am running it on XP Pro, and haven't struck any issues.

Anything with a Bt878 chip is out-dated, and won't go near the 10-bit one.