Is the PVR-150MCE really that bad?

[justinluck]

As some of you may know, I am having a hell of a time with my 550pro card. I have spent nearly all of my free time for the past eight weeks, trying to capture VHS onto my computer...with NO success. You would think that in 2005, capturing analog video wouldn't be much of a problem!!

Well, I have finally come to the conclusion that my 550pro is simply not compatible with any software currently on the market. I have done reformats, swapped motherboard, swapped PUS, used the latest June drivers from ATI's website, tried various capturing software (Cyberlink PowerDirector 4, Ulead VideoStudio 9, Pinnacle Video 9.4, Roxio VideoWave7 Pro, Virtualdub), with no success. In most of the programs, I can see and hear the video fine in the preview window, but get errors when trying to actually record. The usual error says that there is nothing to record, even though I hear and see the video feed just fine! The closest I got was Pinnacle Video 9. I can capture video OK, but it won't let me modify any options. The options are greyed out for some reason. So I can only change the bitrate, but not resolution or capture quality, etc. It also does not seem to use the card's built-in mpeg encoding. If any 550pro owner has successfully captured good quality mpeg-2, please chime in.

It appears that the PVR-150MCE may be a better choice when it comes to compatibility. I see that the ULEAD VideoStudio 9 is compatible with this card.

So even though I am stuck with the 550pro, I am grudgingly looking into purchasing the PVR-150MCE. However, I ran across a review today that definitely did not put this card in a good light.

Take a look here: http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/tuner-comparo/index.x?pg=10

You can see that the images captured by the PVR-150MCE are obviously inferior to the other two cards.

But I would like to know how is the card's real world performance. For those of you who own this card, how satisfied are you with its picture quality? Do you feel that it is capturing the best out of your VHS tapes that you could ever obtain?

Again, I am dumbfounded that in the year 2005, with all this supposed computing technology, there is no obvious solution for capturing analog video with satisfactory results.

Please help because I am ready to kill myself over this mess

Justin

[SHS]

Far I know of there no Record only Tool for the 550 Pro and only package that even work are BeyondTV and GB-PVR there also SageTV beside carp Cyberlink PowerCinema it come with but there no way to Control Bitrate rigth now with SageTV but there always graphedit.
Don't pay any attn to the techreport.com review being the way he did the capture testing methods was 100% the wrong way, which he was using a Xbox with a Pelican RF Adapter switch.

[davebandrews]

I have used the PVR-150 card to transfer videos, and satellite programs. This is a good little card don't believe the reviews. The quality of the video transfer depends on the original quality of your video. If the original is good your transfer using this card will be just as good (no loss in quality).
I use the built in software to capture (8000bit mpg2). I then use either Ulead dvd workshop 2 or ulead dvd moviefactory 4 to build the dvd. Save as image file at the highest setting and then use shrink to re-encode and dvd decrypter to burn.

[junkmalle]

Man, there are so many things wrong with that TechReport review!

First, they seem to be concentrating on using the computer as a television via MCE. The PNG files they posted have frame sizes around 982x536. None of these cards capture at that resolution (and no video source has that resolution) so these are not the actual contents of the AVI/MPEG files captured by the cards but appartently screen grabs of the images as they were scaled to full screen on playback. If your main use for a capture card is to use your computer as a TV this review might have some meaning to you.

Second, the enlarged video appears to have been deinterlaced. Which is fine if you're using your computer as a TV but this has a detrimental effect on the image quality. How do you know if the differences in sharpness and artifacts are due to the quality of the captures or the quality of the real time deinterlacing? For the lion image they didn't even bother to show the same frame! How do you know if some of them were a deinterlaced progressive frame from a telecined movie (which would look a little fuzzy but wouldn't show artifacts) and some where deinterlaced interlaced frames? How do you know which were I, P, or B frames (which may differe in quality) from the original MPEG (DVD) source?

Third, they didn't give samples of the source video (ie, extracts from the MPEG file). The three capture cards displayed different brightness, contrast and black levels and some look better than others because of this. But how do you know which one is correct? Which one looks most like the source? Computer monitors have very different gamma settings than televisions so video captured on a computer should look dark on the comptuter. The Hauppauge captures may actually be the closest to the source. In any case, with the PVR-150 at least, you can control the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and sharpness within the device -- before conversion to MPEG. So showing one or two samples (at the default settings?) is meaningless.

[pfh]

Wow! I can't believe you still haven't got the 550 to work! Dude- I feel your pain. There are those here that are having great results which must also be frustrating for you to hear.
MaximumPC was right- the s/w for this card makes it not ready for prime time. Hmmmm...I'll have to re-think my purchase.

[BSR]

I got the PVR150, been very happy with it so far as far as video quality for a real time MPEG2 encoder.

Audio through the tuner is great.
But audio through the RCA jacks is overly loud, but after using ffmpeggui to convert it to AC3, my problem is solved, it must normalize it.(hauppaugh working on new drivers, it's been a long process)

But no matter how much I like my PVR-150, the best quality captures I get are useing my DVcam's Passthrough ability and then a 2 pass(slow) software MPEG2 encode to DVD. This also gives me better flexibility to edit the DV material and filter and cut if necassary.

But for recording TV shows or real time MPEG2 conversion, the PVR150 is excellent and simple.

[justinluck]

I see on the Hauppauge website that they have beta drivers that are said to fix the audio problem.

BSR, have you tried these new drivers?

[junkmalle]

I see on the Hauppauge website that they have beta drivers that are said to fix the audio problem.

BSR, have you tried these new drivers?

You might want to read through this thread (and others) at shspvr.com:

http://www.shspvr.com/smf/index.php?topic=7317.0

[BSR]

I have tried those beta drivers, and even the newer drivers(23159) posted by SHS on www.shspvr.com.

I used the tweaker a while back, but haven't reinstalled it. I I guess it might help with the audio, maybe, didn't have good luck with it when I did use it.

I use it mainly for Capturing TV through COAX(which is working great) so havn't spent much time on the PVR150 toying with it.

[junkmalle]

BSR, how do your DV 2-pass encodes compare if you capture with the PVR-150 at 15,000 kbps CBR and then perform a 2-pass re-encode back down to DVD bitrates?

[justinluck]

OK, here's another question for PVR-150MCE owners. How smooth is fast motion playback. I was reading the SageTV forums and noticed one member mentioning the smoothness of the PVR-250 to the 550pro. He says the 550pro's motion is much smoother than on the PVR-250. Is the same true for the PVR-150MCE?

But what if you are already using the pvr 250 and sage but bought the sapphire 550pro just to play with latest hardware. I did, and the difference that I see aren't in the screenshots. When recording fast actions sports, the 550 pro is A LOT smoother. The difference is very noticeable either outputing to a regular tv or to a hdtv.

Picture quality wise, the difference isn't much, nothing a little tweaking wouldn't tip each over the other. The only thing might be that the 550pro's picture is just a touch softer, and the sound volume lower, out of the box.

The thing is, now that I know about the difference in smoothness, I pay attention to it more, and not just in fast action... also in fast or long panning or fast scene switching. And I'm starting to spot differences there too. I was happy with my Sage/two pvr250 setup before.

But now I'm hoping that I'll be able to put two 550pro into my sage box, move one of the pvr250 down to 3rd in merit, and put the other pvr250 (I only have 4 pci slot, and I'm keeping the last slot for maybe a HD-QAM tuner) into my gaming box for just tv viewing.

[justinluck]

Here is another comparison of the 550pro and the PVR-150:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?s=9270b99387e1da78eeaaad9dd18b0bc4&p=3496378#post3496378

Again, this person says that the 550pro handles motion better:

Video motion on the ATI 550 is very responsive and watching sports is much more tolerable on this card than on the PVR-150. High motion scenes seem to blur or stutter slightly on the PVR-150 while the ATI 550 is quite smooth with very little stutter to none at all!
Definitely the strength of this card is it's motion compensation.

What do you guys think?

[BSR]

BSR, how do your DV 2-pass encodes compare if you capture with the PVR-150 at 15,000 kbps CBR and then perform a 2-pass re-encode back down to DVD bitrates?

Never captured that high of a bitrate with the PVR-150, can it handle it?

FYI: my DV camera Sony DCR-PC101, cleans the picture and even gets rid of sqiggles on top and bottom of older tapes, sort of like what a TBC does, but I've read that these cameras "don't have real TBC's" Ohh well, it's doing something good in my setup.

Back to what you said, I think if the source material is not in good shape the DV would beat it hands down due to what I wrote above.
But if the source is in good shape, then I bet the quality would be very close between them. 15,000kbps is very high for MPEG2 and would not give you that much loss compared to a 6000kbps rate would, and that would be the key I assume.

I'll be honest, I just don't know but maybe I'll get time this weekend to try it out from a good VHS source. NOTE: DV's downfall is the 4.1.1 colorspace. Then I'll post some screen shots, ha ha, watch me look like a fool and all I've believed the past 6months of using this PVR150 capture has been all wrong.

About motion:
Never owned or saw a 550, but for what it's worth the DV has better motion viewing than the PVR-150(obviously higher bitrate), but never tested at really high bitrates on PVR150. And I just accepted what I saw knowing it was a real time mpeg2 encoder.
..Can't have your cake and eat it too...
Wait a second, what the heck would I want cake for if I couldn't eat it.

[SHS]

550 pro dose handles motion a tab bit better then 150/250/350/500/USB and even USB2 but it depend on source material to start with but there are lot problem with the 550 Pro.

1: Still no sharpness control
2: cthelper.exe still crash at boot up
3: Still can't use diff video resolution like 352x480
4: Audio level still way to low even know it MAX out to 255 at lease the FM part rigth on the money.
5: The MPEG files generated by the Theater 550 Pro are not very compatible with tools like let say Ulead DVD MovieFactory when I try set up auto 1 min chapters point it carp out after 6 min's in to it and using Womble MPEG-VCR MPEG "GOP fixer" I fine it show a lot's of error in GOP time code which not good at all, But writing out a new files with Womble MPEG-VCR fix the problem.

Using the latest 6.14.10.82 drivers

You find this a bit odd when but when it come to 150 it dose a better job at low bitrate unlike 550 Pro which dosen't do so hot at lower bitrate but that other way a round then 550 win at high bitrate but it still not as shape as the 150 PQ but the 550 was a tab bit brighter which I think rigth on the money when come to 550 you can adjust the 150 to match it.

As for the 150/500 Audio problem that is being address there even audio registry tweak from Hauppauge Engineering and 3D Comb registry tweak as well.

Also it seem to me that ATI only catering to MS and no else.