Hauppague HDPVR2: Is it working? Best I can do? Any input appreciated :)

[ThanksInAdvance]

Trying to archive NHL hockey playoffs off my DirecTV DVR. Got it all hooked up via component cabling & it *is* making recordings, but I have concerns.

Hauppague documentation states any old PC can make the recording, but playback requires a more powerful platform. I am recording & playing back from my only PC, a Toshiba Satellite L775D [Win7 Home Premium 64bit SP1, AMD-A6-3400M APU w/Radeon (512MB) HD graphics 1.40 GHz (4 Cores, 4 Logical Processors), 6GB RAM, 500 GB HDD @ 5400rpm w/8MB buffer].

Hauppague claims my recordings are OK even if my playback of them suffers. Playback of files recorded at the max 14.00 Mpbs do indeed suffer. They start out ok but then they quickly freeze &/or slowdown and/or degrade into a pixellized ghosted mess.

My "best" playback has occurred from recordings made by the HD-PVR2 at 11.00Mbps. Best playback has occurred w/Windows Media Player. VLC was not as good. Saw no difference between TS, M2TS, or converted MP4. By "best" I mean I don't get the playback problems I mentioned above. But playback of recordings made at 11.00Mbps are not "smooth" when they depict the faster action sequences that occur during a hockey game, so while I get a viewable recording, it is nowhere near as good as the original.

So my first question is whether you think my recordings at 14.00 Mbps are in fact ok and I simply need a faster PC to render them?

My second question concerns the settings for the Capture program, vis a vis the specifications of the input it captures.

When playing back from the DVR, so that I can record on the HD-PVR2, the Capture program informs me that the Input Resolution is 1920x1080i 60fps. The highest "Video Quality" available for the Capture program is 14.00 Mbps. My "Video Input" is Component and I don't think going HDMI via a powered splitter would make any difference[?]. Considering the fast action I want to faithfully capture, would "Variable" or "Constant" be a better choice?

Would changing anything with the "Video Scaling" settings produce better end results? See [I hope] the attached images.

My TV is a 42" Panasonic Viera Plasma #P42X1. Hockey looks great on it. Specs for it mean nothing to me but they are: 720p Resolution/720 Lines of Moving Picture Resolution/600Hz Sub-field Drive.

I guess my last question is whether, given what I want to archive, there is anything better than the Hauppague HD-PVR2, and if so, what and why?

[usually_quiet]

Trying to archive NHL hockey playoffs off my DirecTV DVR. Got it all hooked up via component cabling & it *is* making recordings, but I have concerns.

Hauppague documentation states any old PC can make the recording, but playback requires a more powerful platform. I am recording & playing back from my only PC, a Toshiba Satellite L775D [Win7 Home Premium 64bit SP1, AMD-A6-3400M APU w/Radeon (512MB) HD graphics 1.40 GHz (4 Cores, 4 Logical Processors), 6GB RAM, 500 GB HDD @ 5400rpm w/8MB buffer].

Hauppague claims my recordings are OK even if my playback of them suffers. Playback of files recorded at the max 14.00 Mpbs do indeed suffer. They start out ok but then they quickly freeze &/or slowdown and/or degrade into a pixellized ghosted mess.

My "best" playback has occurred from recordings made by the HD-PVR2 at 11.00Mbps. Best playback has occurred w/Windows Media Player. VLC was not as good. Saw no difference between TS, M2TS, or converted MP4. By "best" I mean I don't get the playback problems I mentioned above. But playback of recordings made at 11.00Mbps are not "smooth" when they depict the faster action sequences that occur during a hockey game, so while I get a viewable recording, it is nowhere near as good as the original.

So my first question is whether you think my recordings at 14.00 Mbps are in fact ok and I simply need a faster PC to render them?

If your player is set up to do hardware assisted decoding and still can't play the video without problems, then you need to try playing the same videos on a PC with significantly better specs to be sure that the PC is at fault rather than the HD-PVR 2.

My second question concerns the settings for the Capture program, vis a vis the specifications of the input it captures.

When playing back from the DVR, so that I can record on the HD-PVR2, the Capture program informs me that the Input Resolution is 1920x1080i 60fps. The highest "Video Quality" available for the Capture program is 14.00 Mbps. My "Video Input" is Component and I don't think going HDMI via a powered splitter would make any difference[?]. Considering the fast action I want to faithfully capture, would "Variable" or "Constant" be a better choice?

HDMI might well improve your recordings. I have the Hauppauge Colossus and could see a difference when I changed from component video to HDMI. I prefer to use variable bit rate encoding so that a higher bit rate can be used where needed.

Would changing anything with the "Video Scaling" settings produce better end results? See [I hope] the attached images.

No. That will not improve the quality of your recordings. Encoding at a different resolution or frame rate than the video input is likely to reduce the quality of your recordings.

My TV is a 42" Panasonic Viera Plasma #P42X1. Hockey looks great on it. Specs for it mean nothing to me but they are: 720p Resolution/720 Lines of Moving Picture Resolution/600Hz Sub-field Drive.

I guess my last question is whether, given what I want to archive, there is anything better than the Hauppague HD-PVR2, and if so, what and why?

If you want to use a USB capture device that does hardware encoding, probably not.