WinTV PVR 250 and BT878 installed in same PC?

[DV Jones]

Does anyone here have and successfully use an MPEG2 PVR capture card along with a BT878 based capture card in the same system? I used to have a WinTV model 401 BT878 card that I used for a long time, and then I recently bought a WinTV PVR 250 card to perform more reliable and higher quality PVR captures with the hardware MPEG2 encoder.

My only issue is the fact that the 250 card only captures in MPEG1/2 and I miss the flexibility of the BT878 card and being able to capture uncompressed or MPEG4/DivX if I chose to. I'm learly to install both cards in the same PC because I'm scared that the drivers will conflict. Thanks for any comments you may have.

[FulciLives]

You could capture the video at 15000kbps with the WinTV PVR-250 which will create a MPEG-2 file with so little compression that it will re-encode rather well so you can use it as a "master" capture like you would an AVI capture.

Use your choice of VirtualDub or AviSynth filtering and then re-encode with CCE or TMPGEnc and do a 2-pass VBR to MPEG-2 DVD spec.

Sure even at 15000bkps the MPEG capture won't be lossless like HuffyUV but you might be surprised how well this DOES work.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[DV Jones]

Thanks for the response. Actually I thought of that and tried it, and like you said it works good enough. But, there's still no way to do realtime MPEG4/DivX captures. So are you saying that both cards can't be installed in the same system? Thanks.

[FulciLives]

Thanks for the response. Actually I thought of that and tried it, and like you said it works good enough. But, there's still no way to do realtime MPEG4/DivX captures. So are you saying that both cards can't be installed in the same system? Thanks.

I would never try to do a realtime MPEG-4 capture be it Xvid or DivX or whatever. Those formats just don't seem to function very well that way UNLESS you have an ultra fast computer and even then I have my suspects of how well it would really look vs a less-than-real-time-encode from an already captured file.

As far as both working together ... I really don't know ... was just offering a solution that I know works for other people.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[DV Jones]

You're correct about the realtime MPEG4 caps, they are cruddy. But, I do miss the flexibility of being able to do that.

[next]

I have installed the PVR-250 along with a AIW Pro 128 32. No problems. I was able to capture to both cards and used the AIW for TV out in an entertainment center setup. I realize that the AIW I mention is not based on the BT878 chip set but I do not think you should have a problem.

[lordsmurf]

I can run 2 ATI AIWs and a Aver BT878 if I want to. It's worked before.

[Barnabas]

DV Jones,

I have a Hauppauge PVR-250, a Hauppauge Win-TV with a BT878 chipset, and a ATI All-In-Wonder 128 all running on the same computer. You need the generic drivers for the BT878 if it's a Hauppauge or you may run in to problems, but it works fine with all the other cards installed.

[DV Jones]

Okay thanks for the responses. So how are you all doing this?

I used hcwclear to remove all of my model 401's drivers and apps and then shut down the PC and removed the card. Then I proceeded to install the PVR 250 card. So this is the stage I'm still at now. OS is Win 2000.

Why do I need to install the generic btwin drivers? Can I just put the card in and then boot up and install the Happauge drivers?

[lordsmurf]

Was all plug-n-play for me.

[DV Jones]

Okay, I guess I'll just have to take a chance and try it. Thanks.

[Barnabas]

The advice from Hauppauge was to not use their drivers for the Win-TV card, and as they don't do 720x480 anyways, it's best to use the generic. When your computer boots, it will find the new cards and ask you for the drivers. BTW, each time you use hcwclear, it will remove BOTH drivers if both cards are Hauppauge, at least it does here.

[kaayo]

[quote="DV Jones"] I used to have a WinTV model 401 BT878 card that I used for a long time...

Did you ever find a good way to record from TV with that card? I've tried many different capture programs in addition to WinTV2000, using MPEG1 & 2 & AVI, all resulting in crappy quality. When burned to a CD, nothing even comes close to my 20 year old VHS VCR.

What drivers did you use? Thanks for any help. Trial and error is exhausting me.

Regards, Don

[SHS]

There eazy work round
1: Install only base drivers for each card nothing eles
a: The Reg WinTV drivers
b: Intsall PVR 250
2: Use SageTV Recoder for PVR 250
3: Use what ever you using before on WinTV model 401

there are other way
1: You could use the Generic Universal Drivers on the WinTV model 401
inLab BT8xx WDM drivers
Illusion & Hope BT8xx WDM drivers
2: Install WinTV-PVR 250 stuff that way you need worry about two have any problem.

You know you could alway Trasncode the MPEG in DivX captures real eaxy with Vidomi Encoder or Dr. DivX

[DV Jones]

Did you ever find a good way to record from TV with that card? I've tried many different capture programs in addition to WinTV2000, using MPEG1 & 2 & AVI, all resulting in crappy quality. When burned to a CD, nothing even comes close to my 20 year old VHS VCR.

In a word, no, at least not for broadcast TV stuff. That's the main reason I went to the PVR 250. However, like I said before, the BT878 is great for capturing from high quality sources like VHS, Hi8, etc. I just used the Hauppauge drivers and Virtual VCR. I also would use the Huffy codec or the Picvideo codec. The captures could then be cleaned up with Virtual Dub and then converted to MPEG2.

Forget about using "soft" PVR applications with the BT878, I tried them all and they all suck really bad.

[SatStorm]

The only way I manage to succeed good quality realtime mpeg 2 captures with bt8xx cards, are with mainconcept 's built in capture feature. And that after a lot trial and error and with the combination of the btwincap drivers.

If I capture 768 x 576 and convert realtime to 352 x 576 mpeg 2 using mainconcept, the results are more than excellent, using 2 pass VBR and an average of 2800 (not perfect but excellent) or 3200 (near perfect)
I start thinking that this don't work so excellent with the NTSC users, but as a dedicated PAL user, my suprise of how excellent quality that is, is huge!
In a way, I can understand the same for the NTSC users and those later ATI cards with the MMC software...