PVR NTSC/PAL user survey

[Panash]

I'm just curious about the varying success rates folks have with their WinTV-PVRs.

I'm a PAL user and I'd just like to get a pump action shotgun and shoot the bloody thing, even at the maximum settings of 12Mb/s, I get motion blocks. The only time I have got decent results was by capturing from a digital camcorder. But there seems to be users that get good results.

I'd like to hear other folks experiences and a clear indication of the TV system (NTSC/PAL) and their source (DVD,TV, analogue camcorder, digital camcorder).

Maybe if a pattern emerges, we can present any findings to Hauppauge so that they can track down the problems.

Thnx

PN

[vhelp]

Panash,

Hi, I have the PVR USB model. I tested out first, then I was please enough
that I decided to buy it - $199 My units specs are: 352x480 2/4/6 Mbits.
I have hacked the .reg file and can cap at just about any Mbits - so I use
2520 Mbits for my caps.

I use it, in addition to my other capture cards, i.e., DC10+ and (still testing)
ATI Rager Fury Pro 32mb AGP card.

Ok, as for your question(s) ...
I've capped w/ PVR from Satalete and DVD disks. All are NTSC, not pal.
* Satallete will produce blocks at 2Mbits, but at 2520, blocks are sometimes
around, but that depends on the quality of the TV show or movie and how
it was re-encoded on their end.
* DVD caps are another issue. I've just finished running a battery of test
captures from my DVD collections, ranging from Wide-Screen to FullScreen.
Fullscreen is much better (IMO) But, I can't belive the quality I get from
DVD caps. IMO, it's as close to DVD quality as you're gonna get, but without
the many hours of encoding and blocks. I all MY caps from DVDs, I only saw
one very brief moment in blocks - in the movie, "The Fifth Element", there's
the scene (begining) where Luke Perry trips over a sack and fires his gun at
the aliens. A few of the bullets hits an alien, and right at that moment, you
can see for a second, blocks. But, that's about it. Now, I haven't capped all
these moveis to there entirety. I was only selecting (seek button) slow and
fast scenes (on about 12 disks), just to see what quality was like. In short,
I capped enough clips from those 12 disks that it just about filled a 650mb
cd. Without ANY cutting, and only doing a streight demuxing/remuxing of
the audio (so nero would accept), I managed to get an svcd playable in my
apex ad-500.
Well, that was MY experience, so far, with the WinTV PVR USB capture unit.

My only issue w/ this PVR is that it came with no mpeg2 editing software, and
you cannot use the PCI verision's mpeg2 editing software with the USB unit. It
senses for the PCI card, and if it doens't find it, the app shuts down.

Another issue with my experience with the USB model is that there is a lag
or what they call brief "initialization" period. Actually, its 20seconds most of
the time, and 5seconds every time you press the red record button, and every
time you press the stop button. So, if you're starting and stopping your caps
ie, leaving out the commercials, please take my advise (everyone), leave the
commericals in, and edit them out later. There's a glitch to starting and stopping
between commerials. For me, I get anywheres from a blank screen to discolor
to lines to just about anything buggy when i do this. I learned that when you
leave in the commercials, you feel less ajetated and you have a much smoother
capture. What I do is, stop at a 1/2 hour and start again (in mid commercial),
so I have half hour clips to work with instead of one hour or 90min caps.

So far, you need to do two things with the WinTV PVR USB unit before you can
burn with Nero.
* Cut you clips (commercials out) and
* de-mux/re-mux the audio,
* and possibly reduce from 192 to a lower audio if you need it - (I like to use 128bits)
Once the above is met, Nero will burn and finally, you can play in your dvd player.
And, so far, as for HACKING the USB model, only the Mbits can be changed. This I
found on my own. There is NO site that has published this. Only I have this for the
USB model. I've searched high and low for this as well as other changes for the
USB model, but on the PCI has HACKs that work, but those hacks DON"T work for
the USB model (already tried)

All the above is MY USB experience! It's more than a mouth full!

[seanc]

I bought a WinTV PVR a month ago, and gave up on it today - it has been returned. I am amazed at how much trouble I had with this card.

I can only assume the unit I ended up with has been sitting on the shelf awhile. The CD (v1.0, which the distributors told me is the absolute latest CD!) refused to work on anything later than Windows 98, so all drivers and apps had to be found on the net for Win2K. Which is fine, I would have gone looking for the latest anyway, but if they are going to force me to find software that way, they could at least make one nice packaged installer to do everything instead of having to run 10ish seperate downloads.

Tried to install it in an Athlon machine on a via chipset motherboard (had to flash bios to get it to even boot with the card installed), could not get any sound out of it and the remote didnt work. Then installed it in a Celeron/sis chipset, with the same results. Mailed it to the distributor, they confirmed it was faulty, and replaced it (card only, not a whole new package, which I asked for).

So reinstalled it in both machines, remote now works (albeit unreliably), but still no sound. Even with a clean install of the OS and no other hardware, no joy, so I assume these are very touchy about which motherboards they wll play with.

Next step, buy a new computer, Celeron again but intel chipset this time, and finally, I have sound. Low volume sound, and a little crackly, but hey, major victory, only slightly diminished by the fact that the remote now wont autoload on startup, and has to be rerun after login has finished.

So I can finally watch TV on the computer, but of course this is a video recorder, so on I go, record 5 minutes manually, seems to work fine. Set a couple of programme schedules to run while I'm at work, get home and... nothing. Programmes still sitting there, and when I try to open them they say time has elapsed and promptly delete themselves. So I set up few more tests to run while I'm there. Sometimes there is an error message, but usually nothing happens at all. I did eventualy manage to get a couple of recordings, but after a couple of minutes the image freezes, and the sound keeps going a few minutes before also stopping.

So I go back to manual recordings, record an hour long programme (apparently without problem), and sit down to watch it. Quality seems to be quite good, until 40 minutes in, at which point the picture freezes and the sound keeps going and........this is where the stupid thing got ripped out of the machine, shoved back in the box and taken for a little drive.

My machine is not super powerful, but it shouldnt have to be, seeing as its a hardware capture card. I'm sure a 1GHz Celeron, 7200RPM hard drives, Windows 2000, 512MB should be more than sufficient.

If any one out there is considering buying this card, I would think at least 3 or 4 times before handing over the (fairly hefty wad of) cash. Hauppauge don't respond to emails either, so dont expect any help from them. If you aren't an expert, or dont take to frustration well, definitely forget aout it!

[thxkid]

I have a PCI WIN PVR running with NTSC with WIN98 Gold, got the Reg hacks from their German web site, I can set the settings to anything I want with this hack.
I record SVHS programs from Dishnet with good results at 2520, 192 audio, 0.70 throttle, CQ bitrate and sharpness at .00. Only get macro blocks at very fast movement scenes.
With DVD I can record anywhere from 1800 to 2520 with zero macro blocks and a great looking picture results.
I get great results also with Laser Disc, Hi8mm Camcorder also. This all capturing at the MPEG2 settings, fotget MPEG1 capture at any rate, horrible macro blocks.
I use the S-Video input and R/L RCA Imputs for recording my sources.
I was going to upgrade to WIN2000 but I have seen too many problems with this card and other hauppauge products on WIN2000, my old style WIN98 Gold never locks up and works superb with this card here is the system I am using and I have had this card now for 4 months using 1.2V on install CD.

1.2 gig thunderbird 266 bus
512 megs PC 133 Ram
5500 Voodoo 5 AGP 64 megs
Sound Blaster 5.1 Live
PVR PCI
Utobia MPEG2 Decoder card
16x Pioneer DVD
HP Burner
30 & 20 Gig 100ATA Hard Drives