Pre-install: Need honest advice

[RodS]

Yesterday I bought my first PVR (Hauppauge 150), and while I haven't even begun to install it yet, already my head is spinning from all the reading I've done about driver patches, registry patches, third-party utils etc etc.

My PC setup:

Asus TUSL2 motherboard
Intel P3-S 1.2GHz
512MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (non-AIW)
Win2000 SP4
DirectX 9.0C

My requirements from the PVR-150 are fairly basic: viewing of live TV (analog cable) and VHS tapes, recording from these two sources, and occasional scheduled recording.

Considering these basic needs, am I better off just sticking with Hauppauge's drivers and WinTV2000? At least from posts in this forum, it seems that with every BTV driver update, some people get a given problem fixed and others don't -- or a new problem altogether gets created. I've been down this road before with other PC hardware and would like to avoid the same experience.

Thanks,
Rod

[k_kirk]

Rod, what you can do with WInTV2000 out the box is very limited compared to what BTV (or other competitors for that matter) can do for you. If you need scheduled recordings as opposed to just the manual recording then you should give BTV a serious look. There is a free trial version so you can't loose much by trying for yourself. Good luck and best regards

[HomeyFour]

Originally Posted by RodS

Yesterday I bought my first PVR (Hauppauge 150), and while I haven't even begun to install it yet, already my head is spinning from all the reading I've done about driver patches, registry patches, third-party utils etc etc.

My PC setup:

Asus TUSL2 motherboard
Intel P3-S 1.2GHz
512MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (non-AIW)
Win2000 SP4
DirectX 9.0C

My requirements from the PVR-150 are fairly basic: viewing of live TV (analog cable) and VHS tapes, recording from these two sources, and occasional scheduled recording.

Considering these basic needs, am I better off just sticking with Hauppauge's drivers and WinTV2000? At least from posts in this forum, it seems that with every BTV driver update, some people get a given problem fixed and others don't -- or a new problem altogether gets created. I've been down this road before with other PC hardware and would like to avoid the same experience.

Thanks,
Rod

Rod,

I have a setup with 2 PVR-150s, and I've had virtually no problems out of the box. The only ones I've ever had have involved an apparent known bug with Creative Audigy sound cards (Creative's bug, not SnapStram) and some small problems (that were resolved within a few days) with BeyondTV link not wanting to talk on my Linux-based LAN. On my main "Recording" machine, I've never had to do anything but install the regular drivers and regular BeyondTV, without incident.

[jkoon]

Also you have to remember that people generally don’t post when things are working as they should, just as CNN does not report every time that a plane successfully lands.

Seriously I can't remember the last time that I missed a recording.

[dequire]

Excellent point, indeed!

Originally Posted by jkoon

Also you have to remember that people generally don’t post when things are working as they should, just as CNN does not report every time that a plane successfully lands.

Seriously I can't remember the last time that I missed a recording.

[k_kirk]

Ditto - Great point. BTV is a great investment considering all the additional features you get over standard applications that come with the hardware.

[btvfreak]

Here's an interesting thread about capturing from VHS with BTV.

I suggest you install the BTV trial and use it regularly for those 21 days and see if has enough of the features YOU need. It's the best way to decide if you want to throw down the cash for it. Other can tell you why they like it, but unless you give a try yourself it's never a sure thing.

Your setup is enough to run BTV, and it seems to meet all your requirements. BTV will definitely be better than the WinTV app, but better enough to spend the cash is up to you.