What is a good PVR-capable card for the PC?

[Jeff7]

I've almost had it with my Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-PCI card. The features are impressive in wirting, but it's got lots of problems. It causes constant BSOD's or lockups on my system, the scheduler is screwy, and the drivers are pitiful - they won't even make WDM drivers for WinXP; stuck with VXD-based junk!
Is there another card out there that does MPEG2 encoding in hardware (decoding would be nice but not needed), has a scheduler, and a half-decent interface? And of course good picture quality...drivers that work in WinXP, and one that won't crash every computer within 10 feet because of its demon-controlled drivers. A price that won't give me a heart attack would be great too; I managed to get this WinTV-PVR card for $95 because it lacked a remote; that is not a concern to me at all.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[lasergecko]

I have had a ATi All in Wonder 128 for several years and after the software upgrades it has been pretty good for recording. It does MPEG2 & 4 recording. The scheduler works pretty well. You should be able to get an all in wonder for pretty cheap. The software should give you all of the Tivo features but I haven't used them, I only use it to record. You can software to stream the TV signal over the net.

I am looking at potentially getting an ATi all in wonder 8500 DV. This is supposed to have a Digital tuner which I don't think most other cards have. This should result in better picture quality, but there supposedly it gets warm.


That's my two cents.

 

[jarsoffart]

The Leadtek TV2000XP works superbly. It does MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoding. You can also add your own encoding schemes too. I tried DivX for a Hi8-->AVI conversion and it was jittery, but you might be able to find some magic settings to fit your job.

 

[SharkyTM]

the leadtek works really well... newegg has them... deluxe for the price of normal.

Shark

 

[Jeff7]

What kind of CPU utilization does it give you when it's encoding, and when it's timeshifting? (if you can find out, I'm using WinXP, so Task Manager tells me) Also say what processor you're using
The WinTV-PVR does the MPEG2 encoding in hardware, so that really takes a load off of the CPU, and it is able to do so at full resolution - a few other PVR cards I've seen encode using the CPU - they can only encode at half resolution, and to do so, they want an AthlonXP or P4 proc. The WinTV-PVR can record MPEG2 at full resolution in realtime.
Then, try timeshifting with software like that - then the CPU has to encode and decode MPEG2 at the same time.
It would be great to have a card that does the MPEG2 encoding (and maybe decoding) in hardware, while coming with good drivers at the same time.

 

[Ziptar]

Jeff,

Have you tried the drivers for here HOPHOG in Germany.

I used these and I get no BSODs in XP. I can't speak for the scheduler, I don't use it.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Ziptar
Jeff,

Have you tried the drivers for here HOPHOG in Germany.

I used these and I get no BSODs in XP. I can't speak for the scheduler, I don't use it.

It looks like they're the same files, same version numbers and dates, as the ones on the Hauppauge.com site.
I too get no problems in WinXP either - on my secondary PC. The card works adequately on that - there are some bugs in the software and drivers though that I REALLY wish Hauppauge would fix. Lets just say, I'm not too expectant of anything like that happening.
Problem is, my secondary PC is set up on the floor outside of my room - not an idea TV-watching place. I use it to just record shows at this point, but I want the TV card to be in my primary computer - the one at the desk with a nice chair. That's the PC that it crashes constantly.
As for the scheduler, someone has actually gotten tired of waiting for Hauppage to do anything about their flawed products, so he's written a scheduler. I've yet to try it though - the "TV PC's" hard drive is full; I'm awaiting the arrival of 2 speedy new drives for a good RAID setup.

 

[Ziptar]

What Chipset are you using in the PC that BSOD's ??


Could you post a link to the scheduler?

Thanks,

 

[Jeff7]

Both PC's are using a KT266A chipset - the one that crashes is using an Epox 8KHA+ motherboard; the one that works is a Shuttle AK35GTR motherboard.
Both systems are using PC2100RAM, both have AthlonXP processors, the crashing one has a Geforce4 Ti4200 card with the 30.82 Detonators, the working system has a Geforce2 Ti with 30.82 Detonators. Both are using Realtek 8139B-based NIC's with the most recent drivers from Realtek's site. The main PC has a Santa Cruz soundcard, the AK35GTR is using the onboard Cmedia 8738. I did put the Santa Cruz in the AK35GTR with the WinTV-PVR card, and it still worked fine. The forum moderator here thinks it is the motherboard. Epox has only tested a very few TV tuners on their boards, the WinTV-PVR isn't among them. They've only tested boards with software-based MPEG2 encoders, and the setup they told me they tested used an MSI tuner. Hauppauge's help has basically consisted of "reinstall the drivers" which doesn't help. Reinstalling Windows itself didn't help either. It doesn't seem to be an IRQ issue either - it causes problems on my main system regardless of if it's sharing an IRQ or not. In the AK35GTR system (that it works in), the PVR card is sharing an IRQ with 3 other devies.

 

[chizow]

Jeff, search the video forum for "TV" and you'll get some very recent discussions on PVR cards that are Win2K and WinXP WHQL certified. I just popped in the new Asus 880 TV Tuner and it is unreal compared to the Pinnacle PCTV I had before (which uses the same tech as your Happauge). It seems the Leadtek and the Asus are the best of the next-gen under $100. I was torn between the two but went with the Asus b/c of the nicer software bundle and a slightly newer Conexant chip.

Chiz

 

[rbV5]

A good software encoder beats a poor hardware encoder everytime. Even if that hauppage worked fine for you, the encoding quality itself falls short of virtually every decent software encoder in virtually every review I've seen. The only thing I've seen positive is the low-cpu usage, which IMHO is a poor trade off for final encoded video quality. My advice is to get rid of that hauppage while you can still get some money for it, they have poor hardware, poor driver support, poor customer support. None of their product line compares favorably when another manufacterer enters their market, and they do nothing to compete, they just die-off.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: rbV5
A good software encoder beats a poor hardware encoder everytime. Even if that hauppage worked fine for you, the encoding quality itself falls short of virtually every decent software encoder in virtually every review I've seen. The only thing I've seen positive is the low-cpu usage, which IMHO is a poor trade off for final encoded video quality. My advice is to get rid of that hauppage while you can still get some money for it, they have poor hardware, poor driver support, poor customer support. None of their product line compares favorably when another manufacterer enters their market, and they do nothing to compete, they just die-off.

Well, I must say that the quality is fine. When I'm timeshifting, there's virtually no difference at all between the live and recorded picture.

I'll see what I can find in the way of reviews of PVR cards though.