TV Tuner: Hauppage WinTV-Go-Plus vs WinTV PVR 150

[Sureshot324]

I'm about to get a tv tuner card and i've pretty much narrowed it down to these two. The WinTV-Go-Plus has a soft pvr that can encode mpeg2 and divx. Is there any good reason to go with the pvr 150?

I have a fast cpu (athlon64 3000) and i don't think i'll be doing anything else cpu intensive while watching/recording so i don't see the advantage to having hardware encoding.


PS. There's no chance of getting a tv tuner that can get rogers digital cable without the set top box right?

 

[Sureshot324]

bump

 

[JonTom]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324
I'm about to get a tv tuner card and i've pretty much narrowed it down to these two. The WinTV-Go-Plus has a soft pvr that can encode mpeg2 and divx. Is there any good reason to go with the pvr 150?

I have a fast cpu (athlon64 3000) and i don't think i'll be doing anything else cpu intensive while watching/recording so i don't see the advantage to having hardware encoding.

You might want to add more tuner cards in the future - hw encoding makes this easier/possible

PS. There's no chance of getting a tv tuner that can get rogers digital cable without the set top box right?

Don't think so...

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: JonTom

Originally posted by: Sureshot324
I'm about to get a tv tuner card and i've pretty much narrowed it down to these two. The WinTV-Go-Plus has a soft pvr that can encode mpeg2 and divx. Is there any good reason to go with the pvr 150?

I have a fast cpu (athlon64 3000) and i don't think i'll be doing anything else cpu intensive while watching/recording so i don't see the advantage to having hardware encoding.

You might want to add more tuner cards in the future - hw encoding makes this easier/possible

Not sure i understand. Why would i want to add another tuner card and why would hardware encoding make that easier? Anyway it turns out that the wintv-go-plus only has mono sound so i'm not getting that. Might go with the pvr 150 wmce if it works without windows media center.

 

[Mloot]

Well, you might possibly want another tuner card if you were wanting to record two different programs at one time. A single software encoding card can use something like 70-80% of a CPU's processing power while it's recording, so adding a 2nd software card probably isn't all that feasible. However, since HW based cards may only use something like 20-30% of a CPU's power, adding a 2nd HW card should work just fine.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Mloot
Well, you might possibly want another tuner card if you were wanting to record two different programs at one time. A single software encoding card can use something like 70-80% of a CPU's processing power while it's recording, so adding a 2nd software card probably isn't all that feasible. However, since HW based cards may only use something like 20-30% of a CPU's power, adding a 2nd HW card should work just fine.

5-10% on an AMD 1800 with MCE2004.

 

[airfoil]

DEFINITELY get the PVR150 MCE over pretty much any other TV tuner available today. You're looking at a 2-5% CPUusage with this card during recording, versus upto 100% on a software card, depending on the CPU.

 

[tcrosson]

Do you have to have XP Media Center Edition to use the PVR150MCE? Or any of the other MCE versions Hauppauge sells?

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: tcrosson
Do you have to have XP Media Center Edition to use the PVR150MCE? Or any of the other MCE versions Hauppauge sells?

Was wondering that myself.

 

[imported_lovespicyfood]

Originally posted by: tcrosson
Do you have to have XP Media Center Edition to use the PVR150MCE? Or any of the other MCE versions Hauppauge sells?

No. I have the PVR150MCE installed but haven't fooled around w/ it yet since I have a Tivo and this was mainly to download some videos from my digital camcorder. It of course works w/ XP Media Center, but it also works w/ third party alternatives like Sage TV and Beyond TV.

I did some research before I got this card and it's suppose to be a really good value and good performer.

Hope this helps!

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: airfoil
DEFINITELY get the PVR150 MCE over pretty much any other TV tuner available today. You're looking at a 2-5% CPUusage with this card during recording, versus upto 100% on a software card, depending on the CPU.

I suggest the ATI Elite (Theatre 550-chip based) solutions, like the ATI Elite card and the Sapphire 550 card. Sapphire 550 was $70 at a few places recently...

Don't get a software-only card in this day & age.

 

[JonTom]

Originally posted by: tcrosson
Do you have to have XP Media Center Edition to use the PVR150MCE? Or any of the other MCE versions Hauppauge sells?

No, but the MCE versions don't come with a remote or a IR Blaster. I don't actually use either ATM, but the remote blaster will be used soon enough to change channels on the digital cable STB. That was mentioned earlier and is something to think about.