is the PVR-250 Neccesary?

[premo]

I have heard many wonderful things about the PVR-250, such as that it bascialy doesnt use any CPU proccesing power, which I'm sure is true.

But do I really need the PVR-250 if all I wanna do is use AIM, surf the web, and other low CPU-usage type stuff while I use my PVS for whatever I need it to do? I was thinking about getting the $79.99 TV-tuner card, and since the PVR-250 costs about $60 more, I'm hesitant on buying it if I really dont need to.

BTW SS refers to that $79.99 card, http://store.snapstream.com/pcitvtucas.html, as both the WinTV-pci "Hauppauge WinTV PCI analog TV tuner card with stereo sound" and the WinTV-radio "Product Description - Hauppauge WinTV Radio - TV / video input adapter - PCI". The WinTV-radio is the only one that suposedy has FM, so im assuming thats the one it is, but I'd just like some confirmation.


COMPUTER SPECS:
1.47 GHZ AMD ATHLON
256 DDR RAM
80 gig (cant remember the rpm, i think it might be 5400)
Ge-force4 Ti-4200 graphics card

[James]

Short answer, it depends.

It boils down to two things...a) your CPU power and b) how high a quality you wish to record in.

I've a 1.7 GHz CPU, so just a tad bit more CPU power than your system in your sig. But because of my own viewing habits, I don't desire to have THE ABSOLUTE best video quality available to me. The box I record shows on also acts as my primary development box, meaning I'm always banging away on it and doing relatively medium to high CPU tasks on it.

Knowing my own habits and my own use of this box, I'm currently using a Hauppage WinTV (non 250/350) and I record just fine at VHS quality. My CPU gets pretty darn high during times when I'm programming/debugging + recording, but my videos come out fine (for my own needs) and have no major dropped frame/audio sync issues.

Now, if you're wishing to push the envelope further than that AND still use the box as it's recording, that's when your CPU strength is going to become a large gating factor and your mileage may vary depending on what's going on within your box while you're recording.

I'll personally prob end up picking a 250 eventually, but as it is, with all the work going on right now, I don't have time to watch my shows as is, so they're just collecting dust on my HD at the moment. So if I was recording even higher bitrate, lord help me, my HD would have melted by now.

[RobertH]

there are 2 models of wintv pci cards (atleast here in the us) one has an fm tuner and records in stereo the other does not and records in mono. with a 1.7 ghz box you will be able to record fine with either of these devices.

The only real benifit to using a pvr is if you are going to be thinking about archiving the video as dvd-video/svcd/vcd, your a stickler about video quality, or you want to record at a high resolution/bitrate to get the sharpest picture.

With the wintv pci card (mono cheapy one) in my sys1 (see signature) if I set the machine to record at dvd-highres the cpu almost instantly pegs out at about 80% and records video reasonably well, however if anything else on the system tries to use the disk, playback audio, or anything that pushes the cpu up past 90% the recording will start to drop frames wich causes a noticable skip (like trying to watch broadband video on a 56kmodem)

video coming from the software mpeg encoder has been in the past buggy and causes sync errors when trying to edit the files or use other programs to playback the file if you fast forward or skip.

So like James said it is kinda a matter of taste, if you want the higher quality spend the extra $$ and get a pvr. but if your just looking for something to replace a vcr and you dont care about quality stick with one of the cheapy cards and just play around with the video quality until you get somehting you like.

[beyond]

if I were you, i'd spend the extra money.. so you don't end up like me..

see sig.. I now have 3 capture cards in my system! hehe.. I thought I would go the cheap route, get a AIW... then decided it's quality wasn't good enough, got something better... (xcapture).. then I wanted even better quality.. now i'm at the pvr250.. and well.. it's F'in amazing.. makes the pictures that my Cable box (motorola dct2000) look even better than they are somehow..

it's simply amazing.. plus the fact that I only have about 7% CPU usage when viewing live tv is amazing.. heck, doing recordings, I can finally keep doing whatever I want to on my pc... ie, recompression, rip a dvd, whathave u
..

[WillP]

If you're only going to record or playback recordings w/ the wintv-pci you could probably get away with a decent quality profile. Just make sure you don't do ANYTHING cpu intensive while recording or you'll lose all sorts of frames.

However if you're going to watch TV live at all, you're screwed. You'll probably have to use WMV and the quality won't be stunning. Also you won't be able to timeshift. And you wont be able to have anything else running unless you use the absolute worst quality.

I know all this from experience. I originally used the Wintv-pci card with PVS and my system specs are similar to yours (cpu a little faster). I made the switch and have now realized the full potential of this software.

Basically it boils down to this. If you will not watch LiveTV, don't care about great quality video, and don't mind a few dropped frames, than you can get away with the cheapo card. Good Luck and choose wisely!

Will

[jip]

I did the whole wishy-washy and going back and worth between the ATI All-in-wonder card vs. PVR 250. At the end, i went w/ PVR250.

I picked one up for $99 after rebates at Circuit city 1.5 weeks ago. Worth every penny. I can watch recorded videos or watch live tv while recording a show. That would have been impossible w/ the ATI card (pre-3.2 release).

-J

[RobertH]

As a bit of more advice I would wait on the pvr card until the 3.2 release is out, the 3.2 release improves mpeg playback cpu usage by using 3rd party decoders. So wait till 3.2 comes out then play with the mpeg settings and see how high you can go before you start to sacrifice cpu usage and see if you still want more

[ynnek888]

I got the PVR-250, bought snapstream and installed v3.2 RC2.. Works pretty well, and the TV out (using a FX5200) looks awesome, both on my monitor and on my 27" Sony Wega simultaniously, using the pvr decoder codec..

You have to download the pending 77 drivers, and I also updated the codec too..

with a celeron 2.4 Ghz, when I'm recording, I'm using pratically no CPU... however, when viewing and recording, it jumps to 30% and occasionally spikes to 60% using the PVR decoder.... However, I don't seem to have jittering, interlacing, or jumping text problems.

[tjdmobile]

I, have 4 capture cards. I got started with the original Video Blaster in 1991. It was cool, had 4 inputs, all capable of doing PIP at the same time. It was neat, but the quality was just not there for excellent recordings.

2 years ago, I got the ATI AIW Radeon (original). I was impressed with it's quality, which was always best when used with the MMC 7.7 software.

Then I got the PVR-250 a year ago. Wow. It's like night and day. You will be hard pressed to find this clarity on any card when using 480 lines of resolution. It is also MUCH better at handling shaky video, or high action video.

1 week ago, I got another PVR-250 (in order to solve some other problems I was having). The core temp of my HTPC is down 3 degrees now because the new encoder chip remains cool on these cards. Not all that important, but a nice side effect!

Capture cards are like PDA's. Once you buy one, you typically do regular upgrades.. (I have 4 Pocket PC's too!). TV viewing on a 19" will probably look about the same with either the Software or Hardware encoder. Once you blow the image up to 32" or more, you will notice a huge difference between the two cards, at the SAME bitrate. I personally can't live without the PVR-250. It's nice not having to think about whether a show is recording before doing something on the HTPC. It records nicely in the BG while I watch TV, or burn a DVD.

Whether it's the Hauppauge or the Adaptec, go hardware...it's worth the extra $$!

TJD

[rurbaniak]

I have a cheapo WinTV USB and it works for the minor stuff. The problems I'm having is that the WinTV USB doesn't record above 320X240. This is a problem because I want to take the programs I've recorded and transfer them to DVD.

You can re-encode the file and get it to work, but as I'm finding out, it takes about 3 hours to re-encode a 1/2 hour program. Then I still have to burn it.

So, my question is, will a WinTV PVR 250 help me reduce the time because it has the hardware encoder? Will I be able to go straight to burning it when done recording if I want?

Appreciate your comments.

[RobertH]

Video recorded using the highres profile can go directly to dvd using a dvd authoring program like tmpgenc dvd author. You may find that you still want to re-encode the file to change bitrates to fit/shove a video onto a dvd-r. I have found that recording at a bitrate of 6.2mbs with 192kbs audio for cartoons is of great quality and allows fiting 4 30 min shows with commercials removed and a non-animated menu on a dvd-r with some room to spare.

If you are going to use tmpgenc to do reencoding or commercial removal I would recommend searching this forum and the general support forum for VFAPI for instructions on how to get the vfapi plugin for tmpgenc to allow it to process mpeg2 from the pvr correctly. Some software decoders that tmpgenc uses will cause sync errors when used with files from snapstream/pvr's

I normally record cartoon shows at 6.4Mbs with 192kbs audio then use tmpgenc to resample to 6.2Mbs while cutting commercials out. it takes my first system (see sig) roughly 45 min per 30min show to do this over my 100mbs network, and takes roughly 1:20 to do this on my second machine where they are stored I normally setup a batch of the 4 that I will be burning to disk and then just have one of the two do it overnight and then use dvd author to burnthem the next morning. removal of commercials takes the 30+ min file down to usually 21-23 min in length and then I can fit 4 with a non-animated menu onto a dvd-r with roughly 400meg to spare so I could have room to fudge with shows that ranlonger or something.

[archie]

i agree with most the posts here. don't mess around with software encoding. pvr is soo much better. i think the only way to recommend software encoding is to not have used a pvr 250/350. even if you don't want to burn dvd's or think that you don't care that much about quality, i really think that you can't appreciate the difference unless you've used both in the same system.

that's what i think.

[kernel]

Originally posted by archie
i agree with most the posts here. don't mess around with software encoding. pvr is soo much better. i think the only way to recommend software encoding is to not have used a pvr 250/350. even if you don't want to burn dvd's or think that you don't care that much about quality, i really think that you can't appreciate the difference unless you've used both in the same system.

that's what i think.

AGREED! I just threw a pvr 250 in to replace the wintv pci card in my main box and the difference is unbelievable. I think it looks better then on my actual TV even. I never messed with the card till 3.2 so I don't know about the rest of your struggles with the pvr 250/350's but when I went to use it with 3.2 everything installed and worked flawlessly. Software encoding is for suckers!

[beyond]

AGREED! I just threw a pvr 250 in to replace the wintv pci card in my main box and the difference is unbelievable. I think it looks better then on my actual TV even. I never messed with the card till 3.2 so I don't know about the rest of your struggles with the pvr 250/350's but when I went to use it with 3.2 everything installed and worked flawlessly. Software encoding is for suckers!

That is exactly how I felt

was a night a day difference.. amazing how well the pvr-250 works.. even on regular old analog channels.. makes them look amazing

colors need a slight adjustment from the default on mine, but thats it..

besides that, I think the only thing we need for the pvr-250 is some sort of zoom / pan control, so the ones of us that have some black bars, can get rid of them...

oh ya, and support for multiple ones... that would be nice.

i'd definitly buy another pvr-250 if I could use both... (one hooked upto cable box, and one to just the basic expanded cable)

[RobertH]

yeah the neet thing about those black bars is that they dont show up on content burned to a dvd, they are there in the mpeg and if I playback on powerdvd but not on the tv set, the pvr seems to capture the entire video signal instead of just the visible one

and I went and got two of them after I finnaly figured out how to get it working in my first system. I now have 3 wintv pci cards sitting in a box doing nothing i dont think I could ever go back. Only problem I found with them is the occasional color problem and the noise my cable modem makes on ch 3 (NBC) prevents me from watching / recording on ch3 because it crashes the mpeg encoder