Recommendation on new capture card

[john_bayarea]

I'm thinking of replacing my Hauppauge PVR350 with another capture card (due to excessive heat). Hoping the folks in the forum would have some recommendations.

My setup includes the PVR350 card along with VBox 150. The PVR350 is connected to a DirecTV receiver via S-Video. I don't use/need the analog tuner on the PVR350. I would prefer to use brand other than Hauppauge.

The first card I considered is the Avermedia A180. This would give me another HDTV input but it also seem to include S-Video and composite audio/video input (albeit no hardware encoder). The question I have is ... could I use both input of the card at the same time? E.g., record HDTV and DirecTV broadcast at the same time from this one card.

The other card I'm considering is the AverTV Purity 3D MCE 250. According to Avermedia site, they say its supported by BeyondTV but haven't seen it mentioned here. Is it supported?

I suppose another option would be a card with composite/S-video and audio input but no tuner. I'm not too familiar with these cards.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Here are some details of my setup.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
1GB RAM
Biostar Nforce4 SLI mobo
Hauppauge PVR350 - connected to DirecTV D10 via S-video
VBox Cat's Eye 150
Windos XP Pro
BeyondTV 4.4

[tscales]

You're really using the analog tuner on your 350. You don't have to change channels, but that is what is encoding. I would not recommend using the analog side of an HD card if it doesn't have a hardware encoder. The combo cards only let you record from either HD or the analog side not both at the same time.

If you're considering over-the-air HD, I'd suggest the ATI TV Wonder 650. It has a hardware encoder on the analog side, so it will do both HD and SD well (but not at the same time).

Tom

[john_bayarea]

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize that the s-video input also used the tuner for encoding. I'll look at the ATI 650 card but since I already have a VBox HDTV card, I may look at a SD tuner card with HW acceleration. Hopefuly one that's not a heater like the 350.

[ClamsTheCat]

Hmmm does the 350 get substantially hotter than the Hauppauge 500MCE? My 500 does not seem to get all that warm. I have 5 fans cooling the box (plus 2 on the power supply) so maybe I just didn't notice.

Let me know if you wanna get the 350 off your hands fast (and cheap)