I have a choice to make

[Ctwombat]

So I have been struggling with BTV I just built my HTPC 3 months ago tried BTV and Im getting constant stuttering or jerkyness ive swapped out every card reinstalled every driver, so I came to conclusion that i need to get a nice stand alone tuner first ill give you the system specs.

CPU: AMD 3000+ xp
Motherboard: Biostar M7NCD-A04 using onboard sound
Video Card: ATI AIW 9600
HD: hitachi160gb 7200 rpm
RAM: 512 mb pc3200

So which tuner card should I upgrade to, im looking in the 100-200 price range, so far the HDTV Wonder and hauppauge PVR-250 have stood out at me, im just worried will this new tuner will have the same problem as I experianced anyone have any suggestions?

[not_Shorty]

pvr-250's the known-good solution, pvr-150's cheaper but currently has an issue that should be resolved soon (with new drivers?) (if it's not already solved and I'm unaware. Which is possible, I don't have 150's so I haven't kept up on the issue's status.)

[nanook105]

If this is the issue you are thinking about, then I think that the new driver is released:

PVR 150 / 500 Zoomed Issue

The 500 is also a choice in that price range, and it is a dual tuner.

[Ctwombat]

no my ATI is the one doing the stuttering, im trying to decide which tuner to upgrade to

[bnflaherty]

I would go for the 150 or 500 -- not the ATI -- as we do not currently support that card...

[Ctwombat]

well that makes it easy, but why not the 250?

[not_Shorty]

well, if the problems with the drivers for the 150 have been sorted out, then the 250 doesn't really give you anything useful over the 150 and it is more expensive. Unless the 150's don't come with a remote control, the 250's do.

[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?

[flavius]

There is currently no HDTV support.

[Rich A]

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?

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

[Ancient_1]

I am not sure your AIW is the reason for the jery playback. In my setup I have 2-pvr250s 1-pvr350 and a 9800AIW. As far as playback goes I cant really tell which card recorded which show other than the colors seem to be a little better on the AIW and the file size is slightly smaller (2.13 vs 2.32 gigs for and hour). Also the AIW only records as a 4th tuner so cpu usage wouldnt be a factor.

[Ctwombat]

well i guess i dont need a new tuner i fixed my problem, i used to have stuttering when it panned or zoomed and i found another thread that told me to roll back my directx and it worked perfectly