Hauppauge pvr150 vs ati elite

[ChillBill]

I'm looking to get a quality capture card for a reasonable price. I currently have an aiw 8600dv that is fine for gaming, but sucks for tv and video capturing.

I'm looking for something in a store, and not on-line so if I'm not happy I can just go and return it.

My choices are:
ati elite
ati theater 550 pro
ati aiw 2006 edition (includes a 9600 aiw)
hauppauge pvr 150
hauppauge pvr usb2

From what i've seen here my selection seems to be narrowed down to the 150, or the elite...but which one will have a clearer pic???

thanx,
chill

[oceanview]

I'm looking for the same thing as well.

From what I've read and learned...Happauge seems to have the best h/ware and I would go with the PVR250 or PVR350. I feel the streaming /recording will yield better results with the PCI card version.

I had a plesant chat with a sales/tech person at this firm www.pclachemy.com ; they were very helpful. While they are unable to ship to me in Canada due to bad experiences, I would definitely consider them as a source.

I'm confident you will be satisfied with your purchase after talking with them.

Look at the BeyondTV bundles...the BeyondTV s/ware gets very good reviews all around.

later...

[SHS]

ati elite
ati theater 550 pro

Both card are really the same card
It ok but has a few major downside like no real bitrate control lacks SVCD recording not so hot of PQ at low bitrate below 5MB VBR.

ati aiw 2006 edition (includes a 9600 aiw)

Not all that must diff then what you all ready have your aiw 8600dv

hauppauge pvr 150

This most well support PVR beside 250/350 with 3rdparty app and even Linux and OS/2 warp.

hauppauge pvr usb2

If you using laptop that maybe the best way to go

[edDV]

ati elite
ati theater 550 pro

Both card are really the same card
It ok but has a few major downside like no real bitrate control lacks SVCD recording not so hot of PQ at low bitrate below 5MB VBR.

My understanding so far is the 720x480/576 resolution is fixed but bitrate is variable. Software is lacking to get full bitrate control. Using BeyondTV4, PQ isn't bad at all at the BTV 2Mb/s setting for utility recording purposes.

[edDV]

see next

[edDV]

This is preliminary ... but here is a 2Mb/s raw interlaced 720x480 still capture using the Saphire Theatrix 550 tuner card. There is a significant amount of motion in this image (tape crawl) so realtime looks better.

I don't have a Hauppage PVR card here but this looks good to me for 2Mb/s 720x480 live interlaced cable video. I do see some transition overshoots below 16 and above 235.

[edDV]

Well that didn't look as good on the web page but here is an interlace Vegas frame cap (same frame).

[SHS]

Well in may case runing them both side by side the 550 wasn't so hot but the with higher bitrate above 4mb/sec there both better the same.

[ChillBill]

well I went out and got the ati elite, and I don't really like the capture quality that much...verry grainy. Plus I can only run it on my guest account...must be some compatability issues, casuse I keep getting errors at mem address 0x0...... memory can't be read

So If I can find one locally I'll try the pvr250, otherwise I guess I'll get the 150mce version...I don't have xpmce installed, but need to redo windows, so I guess I'll try the 150mce, and hope it works better than the elite.

[SHS]

edDV The bitrate is not a ture variable it fix variable
which means you can only use 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 11,12,13,15 vs some thing like this 8.25 or 9.5 or 10.75 like the hauppauge cards can do

edDV try high action video you see that it dosen't do so hot, but haven't try re-testing it with latest beta or 6.14.10.102 drivers.

[yuppicide]

The WinTV PVR 150 is almost the same card as the 250. The 150 is newer and better. This is from a review:

"When rumors of the a PVR-150 series spread around the HTPC community we all wondered what is was, the lower model number made it sound like it was a feature reduced PVR-250. Well as the details of the PVR-150 and its' dual capture big brother the PVR-500 came out it became apparent that Hauppauge had simply refined the PVR-250 design. Thanks to the march of technology what once took separate audio and video digital-to-analog converter chips could now be done in one audio and video A/D chip, thereby simplifying the PVR-150's design. This meant the PVR-150 could be made for less money, and in turn the savings are passed on to us the consumer. What was more, the new A/D chip had better specifications, so the image quality of the PVR-150 actually had a shot at not just equaling the "gold standard" of the PVR-250 but being somewhat better. So the "150" in the model number didn't refer to feature loss, but it was more likely the "150" was meant to convey value, the 150 costs less then the 250. As with most new hardware initially not many applications supported the new PVR-150 and 500 series. Within a few weeks all major Windows PVR applications had the cards working. So now the PVR-150 is a very viable option."

[SHS]

edDV I for got ask you what driver was you using with your ATI 550 the 102 or newer 117?.
And have tryed videobitrate 2MB/sec to peakvideobitrate 4MB/sec
or was that CBR mode you posted?.
Try what I said dose it get some blockness?.

[edDV]

I have the 102

My system is having lower level problems. I didn't get a satisfactory plug-and-play experience. Audio drops after about 60 seconds of PVR capture.

I just set it all aside while I fight the other fires.

ATI has conditioned me to expect months to years of effort to debug their products.