Capture card w/ Remote Cntrl for 4 yr old P733 PC?

[flemingdl]

Advice on this would be appreciated! Want to upgrade our 4 yr old PC, that I now setup in our recroom, with a Capture type video card to capture TV, display on TV. Currently it has a 2001 ATI Rage Pro 2x card ($100 back then) that does this but in soso mpeg1 (w low frame rate) and a soso user screen that's not easy for family to use.
The Wishlist: 1) Allow display on TV & Monitor, 2) have remote control, 3) preferrable record in VCD format, at least a bit better than current ATI card.

The old PC is: Pent 733mhz, VIA 693 ATX Mboard, AGP 32bit 2x slot, 384 mb memory; Windows 98 (could re-image with WinXP if needed). Perhaps a used ATI All-in-Wonder or Nvidia card? (Newer the better if it could be compatible with a newer PC if this old one fails eventually). Any Idea's? Anyone selling?

Thanks again!

Don Fleming
Bellevue Wa.

[yoda313]

Hi,

The hauppauge wintv pvr250 would work perfectly. Hardware mpeg recording only though - vcd, svcd, and dvd capturing with remote.

I had it running on a win 98 amd 800mhz pc. So it should do just fine on your unit. Excellent quality, in fact I took it out of that pc and put it in my newer Emachine I bought last fall.

Kevin

[Abond]

PVR 250 has no TV-out. Maybe PVR 350 (or 500) has it, I don't remember.

[reboot]

The PVR-350 has video out, only mpeg-2 though, so you can't play your avi's on the computer and watch on the TV.
The PVR-500 is just a dual tuner card, no video out.
You would be better off with a PVR-250 and a newer video card with video out on it.

[Abond]

Aah, yes, 2x250=500

[flemingdl]

Thanks Folks!

So, my plan is to leave the ATI Rage Pro AGP card in which gives me the TV-OUT hookup for viewing PC on TV. I will look at WIN-TV PCI cards but may lean towards ATI PCI cards for compatibitlity with my older ATI Video card(?). Thats assuming new ATI PCI TV card OK with 4 yr old ATI Rage AGP card. Cool that the newer PCI TV cards still work on 4+ yr old PC's (I know the AGP cards have changed, higher 4x speeds now and all).

I do have an AverMedia Ultra TV PCI card in newer Pent 2.8 PC that I could try in the Win98 PC. I've been pleased with the Avermedia card, does it all, nice remote, cost < $100 on sale.

Don F

[reboot]

Capture cards have no basis on "compatibility" with video cards.
If you have video out on your ATI AGP card, get a PVR-150/250/350/500.
Both the retail and MCE versions will work in regular XP. Download all the software from www.hauppauge.com

BTW, the Win-TV cards are NOT the PVR cards. They're basically the same as your Avermedia.
The PVR series has hardware mpeg-2 encoding.
Your system is too slow to use the Avermedia or Win-TV card, as they rely on the CPU to do all the work. The PVR cards do not.