Canopsus as a PVR?

[jwfc]

I was just wondering if you could use the Canopsus ADVC 50 or 100 along with a TV as a VCR in any way? Thanks.

[bits]

You could sort of but.....

1. You would need to have something like a VCR feeding the ADVC100 the TV analog signal.
2. Very limited scheduling capability. You could schedule using the Windows scheduler but you
would need to make sure the channel you wanted to record was pre-set. No auto channel change capability.
3. The file size for a two hour video would be 25Gb, so you would need a lot of HDD space. If you choose to re-encode on the fly then you will have to be very mindful of the load on the CPU - dropped frames and such

For an occassional recording this will work but if you did more then it would be very cumbersome.

[nelson133]

Actually the only drawback is the large amount of hd space dv avi will take. The 100 will plug directly to your cable box and allow you to dump to your hard drive directly. A program like windv works well. There are other dv programs that will even let you set a timer. The real secret to making this work is to use a software, on-the-fly mpg2 encoder. I use something that I got free with a motherboard one time, but I won't reccommend it, it only encodes in full dvd and you'd be better off with something that would encode to d1/2 for tv captures. The mpg2 flies are much smaller than thedv avi ones, about 4 gig per hour in full dvd mode. If you capture in full dvd mode you'll need something like dvd shrink to fit 2 hours on a standard dvd+-r.
Nyah Levi

[edDV]

I use my ADVC-100 to record SD S-Video and downscaled letterboxed HD S-Video off the cable box. There are two ways to do this

1) S-Video converted to DV format for highest quality. The DV can be edited later and encoded to DVD MPeg2 as a separate step.

2) Real time DV-MPeg2 transcoding using Mainconcept MPeg2 encoder (standalone version or version included in ULead Video Studio 8/9). Since this requires a realtime software DV-MPeg2 transcode, a fast computer (>2.4GHz) is required and the computer will be running 70-100% flat out.

I use the above for special recordings. For schedule based utility PVR recording I can use my ATI AIW (hardware assisted MPeg2 under MMC) or a Saphire 550 hardware tuner/encoder used with Beyond TV4. I'd recommend the Hauppauge PVR-250 over the 550. It has more flexibility.

PS, the nice thing about using the ADVC for this is the IEEE-1394 cable can be plugged into any of my computers for recording without special hardware required in the computer. It will even work with a laptop.

It should be noted that a DV camcorder with analog pass through can be used the same way. The ADVC does a better job matching levels but otherwise is the same.

[jwfc]

thanks for the advice. i keep waivering between buying different capture devices because someone favors this setup vs this setup. the most important thing to me is capturing a vhs to dvd for my old tapes, but having an AIW be able to do that as well as act as a PVR is like icing on the cake. that's assuming i can get it to work with my system, and the PCIE AIW are any good which i'm not sure i'm willing to pay the $ for just yet. if anyone has on any advice on the way to go it would be greatly appreciated .

[edDV]

If I could only have one device for your needs, the choice would be either a AIW or the PVR-250.

The problem with the AIW is hardware MPeg2 encoding is only possible with MMC software which tends to be a moving minefield.

The PVR-250 can be controlled by various PVR software with full hardware encoding. The PVR-250 lacks a built in display card, but most people already have one. The main disavantage is lack of capability for uncompressed capture which the AIW can do.

Today I'm partial to the USB2 version of the PVR-250. That allows the flexibility to plug into various computers without opening the box. Normally I'm wary of USB2 devices but the Hauppauge USB2-PVR has wide third party software support.

[jwfc]

does the pvr-250 have a lot of problems setting up like the AIW does?

and sorry for sounding like an idiot, but you say,

The PVR-250 lacks a built in display card, but most people already have one.

Does that mean I need a graphics card on top of this card? I was under the imrpession that it acted as a graphics card.[/quote]

[edDV]

For the PVR, your computer would need a separate display card. Something like a ATI xNNN or NVidea PCIe card. The AIW includes a Radeon display processor on the same card.

The PVR comes with basic tuner software that is easy to use. Full PVR software is availalble from third parties like SageTV, BeyondTV, GB-PVR and others.

[jimmalenko]

I have used NeoDVD with my ADVC-100 for on the fly, quick n dirty "captures", complete with "automatic" authoring. I either use this method or go the AVISynth -> TMPGEnc -> TMPGEnc DVD Author route if I need to do any editing, top n tailing, commercial removal or whatever.

[rallynavvie]

You don't want your video output card to also act as your video input card. You should have a dedicated PVR capture card and a dedicated video card. Not only is the proprietary hardware encoding on the AIWs still rubbish, they had problems with IRQ errors. I thought IRQ errors went away with the NT kernel but apparently...

Besides for what an AIW cost you can get a decent PVR. The only time I'd recommend using an AIW (or any VIVO card for that matter) was if you had absolutely no way to make any PCI slots available for a PVR card. Are you gaming with the rig? Then you don't really need a high-end video card anyway.

I second the vote for a Hauppauge PVR like the 250. I have a 250 in my HTPC and it went in with no troubles at all. I use it with MCE so I never had to mess with the proprietary TV software so I can't offer any comments on that. I had tried one of the nVidia PVRs (an eVGA NVTV card) prior to it and it was nothing but troubles and never ended up working anyway, and I'm a supporter of nVidia video cards otherwise.

[jwfc]

cool thanks for the advice. no i won't be gaming along with it. do you have a recommendation for a video output card to compliment the 250? thanks.

[edDV]

On the ATI side, I got a dual monitor VGA/DVI-I/S-Video Radeon 9550 clone for $38 (after rebate) on newegg.com. The 9550 has all the MPeg2 decode and HDTV output modes other than MPeg4 support. A $28 HDTV adapter is needed to get Y, Pb, Pr output.

Nvidea has similar models.

[bits]

cool thanks for the advice. no i won't be gaming along with it. do you have a recommendation for a video output card to compliment the 250? thanks.

What is your current video card? You must have one, otherwise your computer screen would be black. If you are not going to watch TV on your monitor then what ever you have will be good enough.

[jwfc]

i'm currently researching the different parts i want for my new computer system. so i have an onboard video card for my shuttle now, but i want something more robust for video editing.

[edDV]

i'm currently researching the different parts i want for my new computer system. so i have an onboard video card for my shuttle now, but i want something more robust for video editing.

The video display card doesn't need to be very fancy. PCIe cards are mostly capable. Make sure they have S-Video and Y, Pb, Pr dual head capability at minimum. HDMI will have to wait.