Video Capture (TV capture)

[Modular]

Hey all, I wanted to know if there were any standard PCI TV tuner cards that can also record at specific times/channels. I don't want a TIVO if my puter can do the same thing.

Thanks.

 

[Markbnj]

Well, yes and no. Most of the popular tuner cards come with something similar to Tivo. ATI ships with PowerCinema, Hauppage with WinPVR, etc.

PowerCinema blows, but I've heard decent things about WinPVR.

Or you can buy the card of your choice, and use a 3rd party PVR application, either free or retail. GBPVR is pretty good if you are tech savvy and can stomach messing with it to make it work. MythTV gets excellent reviews from Linux types.

Personally I use Snapstream's BeyondTV 4, and wouldn't switch to anything else. It will cost you $60-70, but it is rock solid, comes with an online program guide, and works extremely well.

 

[Ryland]

If you are lucky you can pick up Beyond TV (which is what I am using) really cheap. I think I ended up getting it for free because Buy.com had BTV 3 FAR and Snapstream had a deal to upgrade to BTV 4 for free...

Check Snapstreams compatibiliity list though to make sure it will work with your card.

 

[Markbnj]

I'm just waiting for Snapstream to add QAM support, then I will be getting an MDP-130 or equivalent and tuning digital, baby .

 

[Modular]

Thanks for the replies. I dove right in today and started researching hardware and software. There's alot to learn about this stuff. One question: can you set the output folder of the recording software to be a shared folder which can be accessed from all computers on the network on the software you use?

 

[Markbnj]

I don't see why not. It can write to any mounted volume. Snapstream also has an optional module, I forget what it is called, that will stream videos to any system in your home.

 

[mzkhadir]

Woot.com has one for 20 buck if you don't care about HDTV.