Something better for Capture than WinTV for Hauppauge?

[EwanG]

I have a Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB that I've started using for capture rather than my Canopus ADVC-100. Mainly because I've had so many firewire freezes lately that I was getting tired of rebooting my machine.

Anyway, since my machine has USB-2 ports, the Hauppauge actually does a nice job of capturing at Full D-1 at a 4000 bit rate (on my old machine I could only get Half D-1).

My biggest problem with going this route has been capturing everything in MPEG-2, which means going through a fair bit of work to get a file I can actually edit and filter properly. Reading some of the discussions on here, I'm wondering if there's another program I could use to capture in a "friendlier" codec (say MS MPEG-4 V2)?

Thanks in advance,
Ewan

[EwanG]

Does the lack of response mean that there really isn't any other option that works? Or just that I'm asking something extraordinarily dumb?

FWIW, I have tried to capture with VirtualDub and iuvcr, and neither seems to recognize the WinTV PVR USB even though I can then start WinTV 2000 and see that it's obviously connected.

[CORRY20]

I had the win tv usb for my laptop and I just got Aver DvD easymaker. Your can make vcds and MPG2 files it is really easy.Just click the button and you can copy to MPG1,MPG2,VCD AND DVD.

[fourthquark]

I believe that the WinTV-PVR USB can only capture in MPEG2. A hardware processor within the unit itself takes the raw video and converts it to MPEG2, then the MPEG2 gets fed into your computer through the USB connection.
One of the problems with hardware encoding devices is that it is difficult to find aftermarket software that recognizes the hardware encoder. Having said that, Hauppauge is a big enough player that there are several products out there that recognize its hardware. One is called SageRecorder. I think that some of the Intervideo products also recognize the HW encoder used by Hauppauge. But you are stuck with capturing an MPEG2 stream in any case.

[EwanG]

But you are stuck with capturing an MPEG2 stream in any case.

In that case I guess WinTV 2000 is as good as I need, and getting more familar with my conversion options is the order of the day

Thanks for the info,
Ewan