How to use a pc as a pvr using mpeg4?

[jim15800]

I'd like to know if anyone has recommendations on the software and hardware to use a pc as a pvr to allow the pc to record mpeg4 to the harddrive? Any suggestions as to correct hardware and software to do this would be appreciated. Thank you for any assistance.

[frankb]

Hi Jim,

I use the Hauppauge PVR-350 tv card. After having started my TV recording adventures with the Pinnacle PVTV Pro card, I learned (from this site) that there are major differences between cards that use software encoding and cards that use hardware encoding. The Hauppauge card is of the latter category - meaning that you can easily encode up to full DVD quality without any blockiness or degradation of quality. Also, because the card has a built-in soundcard, audio-video sync problems are now for me a thing of the past.

Frank

[teegee420]

I'd like to know if anyone has recommendations on the software and hardware to use a pc as a pvr to allow the pc to record mpeg4 to the harddrive?

To answer your question, any of the ATI All-In-Wonder cards can capture to Divx using version 8.8 or later of the ATI Multimedia Center software. I'm not sure which version is currently being bundled but you can download the latest version for free on the ATI website if you should decide to get an AIW. These cards also act as your primary graphics card too so you can get a capture card and update your video card at the same time. You can also capture to high quality mpeg-2(DVD).

[ferreter]

Cartman,

Which AIW card do you have? I have the Radeon 7500 and when I capture using Divx, the quality is not good. When I capture using MPEG2, the quality is great. Does this mean the card has a hardware MPEG2 decoder but no other hardware decoder? Just wondering...

PS - What is up with the chick?

[teegee420]

Well Snoopy, I have the same card you do. None of the All-In-Wonder cards use hardware mpeg-4 compression. Divx will only look as good as the bitrate you allow. I've experimented a little with the "Portable" Divx preset which only uses 1000kbps and it looks about as good as any other Divx encode with the same bitrate. The "Home Theater" preset looks much better but uses three times the bitrate. If I want a high quality capture, I don't use Divx, but rather mpeg-2. The only reason why I would use Divx would be if I plan on keeping hours and hours of programs on my hard drive.

On the other hand, I do have a few shows where I capture to mpeg-2 and convert to Divx with Virtualdub. This is because I can get better quality that way by applying filters and doing a two pass encode as opposed to capturing directly to Divx. I only use Divx when file size is an issue. I've made some pretty nice looking Divx encodes but I still prefer mpeg-2. One of the reasons why Divx is so popular is that a lot of people honestly cannot tell the difference from mpeg-2. I'm not one of those people.

P.S. - As for "what's up with the chick", she's a cool character from the movie Kill Bill Volume I.

[ferreter]

Thanks Cartman. I'll try again with different settings to capture in DivX. I'll have to watch that movie. You got me curious... :P