Capture Card Recommendations

[kburton]

I'm in the market for a TV capture card and I wanted to get some feedback and suggestions from anyone who's familiar. My needs only go as far as wanting to occasioanlly record TV shows and movies to transfer to DVD. I will not be capturing from a camcorder or VCR. I have a Comcast digital set-top box that I can dedicate to this endeavor. I want to have the options to encode to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. Given the fact that my system is only average (probably below-average by some people's standards) I would prefer a card that has hardware MPEG-1/2 encoding and I'd like to keep it under $100 if at all possible.

System Specs:
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
256 MB DDR
64 MB Nvidia GeForce4
120 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM
40 GB Western Digital 5400 RPM

[Abbadon]

Hi there,

Well, I will say this, based on my personal experience, but you should take my word with a little grain of salt.

I own a Kworld Hardware Mpeg TV Xpert TV Tuner card; the one shown here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006PRMA0/qid=1120757072/sr=8-3/ref=sr_...&s=pc&n=507846

At first I thought it was a big mistake to purchase it, but after many weeks testing, testing and testing, I was able to make it work and I am very happy with it. I can record to mpeg1 or mpeg2 without any problems using an application called ChrisTV that I purchased some time ago, but it was very difficult to make it work.

Keep in mind you will have to spend over US$100.00 in total to enjoy it because ChrisTV is a commercial software, but man, I can't complain.

(There is a trick with this card and ChrisTV - I selected in the configuration settings that the card is a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 and now even let me use special configution settings for video filtering.)

This card also works with the latest version of SageTV and CPU utilization is zero when you disable video preview while encoding.

I also purchased the Avermedia UltraTV 500 and it works very well with the bundled applications.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001PFO32/qid=1120757615/sr=8-3/ref=sr_...onics&n=172282

My setup is:

Athlon XP 2600+
Nvidia FX 5700
1 Gigabyte of Ram
40 Gigabytes hard disk IDE
80 Gigabytes Hard disk SATA
MSI Motherboard
Etc. ....

[yoda313]

Hi,

I suggest a hauppauge wintv card. I have the wintv pvr250 and its a hardware mpeg 1/2 only capture card. It's quite excellent and ignores macrovision. It might still be a little pricey new so you might consider an auction site. Though they do make a 150 model but I've read mixed reviews on that model here.

Check it out

Kevin

[kburton]

I'm actually leaning towards the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150. I've seen a sample video that impressed me and it seems to have good third-party software support. Fry's here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area has them in-store for $79.99. That's shelf-price, no rebate!

[Abbadon]

I have read many complains regarding the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150, all of them have to do with audio issues.

Just for you to know.

[diginode]

according to my suggestion Compro Videomate Gold plus II is the best choice to capture TV in MPEG 1/2 and also watching TV on desktop. It supports win all OS and any other third party software to capture. it is made by philips SAA7134 chip with 9 bit ADC for best quality picture and colour resolution. it is bundled with own PVR + ulead movie factory + ulead video studio software.
Capture quality good and no frame loss, no sync fail.

for information
http://www.comprousa.com/New/en/product/vmtvm500.html

[Abbadon]

Diginode,

I am afraid the Compro Videomate Gold plus II does not come with a hardware mpeg encoder, it is codec based.

[kburton]

Never heard of Compro Technology. Interesting...

[hrlslcbr]

TV Wonder Elite, Sapphire theatrix, or any card that has the theatre 550 pro chip produces excellent quality; and have a hardware MPEG-2 encoder.
ATI all-in-wonders are good too, but they only have hardware assisted MPEG encoding.

[kburton]

Hardware encoding is what i want. From what I've read in these forums, software encoding is best with much meatier systems than mine.