Best video capture card?

[bryan_chow]

Which is the best video capture card for SnapStream?

I know Hauppauge WinTV PVR cards are good but I'm not sure which (PVR 250 or PVR 350) is better.

Thanks,
Bryan

[RobertH]

in the eyes of snapstream all the hardware encoders are equal, the 350 has tv out and an fm tuner but they arent supported in snapstream

[mrg5]

B]in the eyes of snapstream all the hardware encoders are equal,[/B]

I'm relatively new to all this, and I'm trying to understand the difference between cards. If I look at the cards in the SnapStream store, they vary anywhere from $50 - $150 (http://store.snapstream.com/tvtunercards.html). What is the difference between the basic WinTV PCI tuner card and the WinTV-PVR-250? Does one have onboard hardware acceleration or the like and the other doesn't?

Thanks!

[RobertH]

the non pvr models from wintv are standard tv tuners, the pvr models all have hardware encoders on them, the difference is the pvrs do all the work where as the others the cpu in your system does all the work. the pvr's also come with a remote control

[mrg5]

Got it, thanks for the quick response. So from what I'm reading on the various threads, is that I will see higher quality video (live TV as well as recording) with lower processor utilization if I get the PVR-250 vs. just the standard WinTV pci card. I already have a 128MB DDR NVidia GeForce FX 5200 graphics card so I should be good there, correct? And its running on a 2.4 P4 with over a GB of RAM, so I assume if I get the right card (currently have a WinTV pci card) like the PVR-250, I'll be all set.

Also, is there a site or article or related information that you would recommend I read to get a better overall understanding of how all this stuff works? I'm just starting to experiment, and would love to ultimately make my PVR system central to my home entertainment setup.

Thanks again!!

[RobertH]

Yeah the pvr will give you about the highest quality you are going to crank out until they start supporting HDtv cards.

When you get the pvr card completely ignore the cd that comes with it, the only usefull thing on it is probably the mpeg editor, the drivers dont work with snapstream. goto the following and follow the installation instructions there:
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/sw_pvr_250.htm

Im starting to think someone should write a nice how-to/newbie type guide to step thru the program and show the features and explain some stuff (mutters might as well do it myslef...... maybe ill do it later when im bored)

[bryan_chow]

Hi Robert,

I got the PVR-250 you recommended and it works really great. Awesome quality. I seem to have lost the capability to stream live TV though - is that right?

Thanks,
Bryan
PS: Can't wait for 3.4 to get rid of the ugly black bars on my video...

[RobertH]

you cannot stream livetv with the pvr, that is one of the trade offs for good quality recordings. you can however have snapstream recompress your pre-recorded video and then stream that

[bryan_chow]

Hi Robert,

I don't mind not being able to stream live TV; it's a worthwhile tradeoff for good quality.

But are you saying I can't even stream recorded shows that were recorded using the PVR-250?

Thanks,
Bryan

[RobertH]

the mpeg format cant be streamed with snapstream, you can play it over a network using windows filesharing and media player but snapstream only streams using the windows media format.

[bryan_chow]

Ah, I see. "Streaming" via Windows file sharing will do, thanks!