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Originally Posted by Ctwombat
okay so the ati hdtv wonder is out, but i still want hdtv quality is there a tuner out there that has BTV's support?
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Not at this time. I have all of the above and have used them all in various PVR environments. The ATI AIW (software capture) the Hauppauge 250 and 350 (hardware encoders) and the ATI HDTV wonder (which is new for me and something I'm experimenting with) That also does software encoding, however it also can do straight Mpeg transport stream capture off the air directly to your hard drive in the transmitting station's native mpeg transport stream. If you only use that (no encoding) it's only writing to the disc, which is fast and generally only takes about 20 or 30 percent CPU use at the worst case.
The ATI AIW (non hd) capture cards can use 50 percent or more CPU.
The hardware based encoders can use typically 5 to 10 percent CPU. Obviously if you are going to have a mulitple tuner setup, the way to go is with all hardware based cards.
The ATI HDTV Wonder is something that is still new. I've been using it in a 2nd PVR box as a stand alone HD over the air tuner. The video is incredible.
Integrating it to something like Beyond TV may take the programmers a bit of time. So far it's not supported. Capturing. storing and playing back high quality 1080i high definition signals withing the BTV environment is going to take some work (developement wise) IMHO. But I think it will be worth the wait.
The bottom line is the ATI HD Wonder can do a fine job with relatively low CPU use IF you use only the captured transport stream directly off the air. (not encoded) But if you want to save a ton of disk space or use the captured video for DVD or what-ever, THEN you have to let the ATI software encode the received transport stream as it's being captured. That encoding is done just like all the other (up to now) ATI All In Wonder cards. That is it's using a "software" encoder. So couple the CPU over-head for the decoding of the transport stream to the CPU over-head to encode that stream into a different mpeg format .. and you will be using a LOT of cpu use.
For "serious" PVR work and multiple tuner capability you are best served by using a capture / tuner card that has it's own firmware based encoder.
The other day for kicks I checked my CPU use while my HTPC was recording TWO shows at the same time AND I was watching another pre-recorded show. CPU use was under 50 percent .. And most of that was the decoding of the mpeg for the pre-recorded show I was watching at the time