WinTV PCI FM or WinTV-PVR-250 Kit (PCI) ?

[soto]

I would like to buy a new tuner card and set it up with Beyond TV 3.

My questions are:

Is it better to use a simple PCI card like Haupauge WinTV PCI FM or an mpg2 recording enabled version (PVR) like the Haupauge WinTV-PVR-250 (PCI) ?

I read that it will not be possible to have live TV streaming with Beyond TV 3 using an mpg2 enabled card ? Is this a disadvantage ?

Do the 2 types of cards have to be looped with he the PC's graphic adapter ? Or only the simple version and not the PVR version ? Why ?

What else is important to know when deciding to user either the simple PCI or the PVR TV tuner card of Haupauge together with Beyond TV 3 ?

Thanks for any hints.

Soto

[jkoon]

Well in my opinion (and many others here on the boards) that it is far better to use a hardware encoder like the pvr-250 rather than a software encoder card. The pvr delivers a much higher quality image and uses extremely little cpu.

However, as you mentioned, the drawback of the hardware encoders is that you cannot stream live tv to other pc’s.

The tuner cards do not need to be looped through the graphics card, everything is dealt with using the pci bus.

Another thing to take into consideration when purchasing a tuner card is how much cpu power your machine has. If you are going to get a software card you will need to have a much more powerful cpu to get good quality video where a much older machine can still get high quality video using a hardware encoder.