Hauppauge WinTVGo and Timed (PVR/VCR like) Captures

[kbehel]

I have a Hauppauge WinTVGo card that I'd like to set up to work for pre-programmed TV captures (like a PVR/VCR).

Ideally what I'd like is to make VirtualdubVCR work with this card and use it to set the TV tuner to the correct channel and then capture a program. VirtualdubVCR allows multiple programs to be set up this way.

HOWEVER, I have an XP system, so I run into the VFW driver problem.

I've tried to install the Hauppauge VFW drivers (v311) but VirtualdubVCR does not like them. I've also tried the BTwincap drivers, which work, but the TV tuner channel selection feature of VirtualdubVCR does not - so it cannot automatically change the channel.

The big appeal of VirtualdubVCR over the Hauppauge WinTV2000 software is the compression of the other drivers. Since I don't plan on capturing more than 30 min at a time, I'm not really worried about the best audio sync.

So - I don't really care what program I use as long as I can have it:
do timed recordings
change the channel automatically
use some of the compressed (Huffy, etc) codecs to keep the file size reasonable.


Does anyone have both a suggested capture software and specific driver recommendations (BTWincap/Hauppauge WDM/VFW) to accomplish this?

thanks,

Kevin

[yoda313]

Check out www.titantv.com. It works with the hauppuage series and should work with yours.

While it won't change what you can capture too it is a great free timed program web guide. Just click on the show you want to record and it will program your capture software automatically. At least on my fusion hdtv it also names the file the name of the show (unfortunately it doesn't include the episode title but its still useful).

Good luck on the wdm/vfw issue though. Getting other software to capture with hauppuage can be tricky. You might look into a recent version of ulead. It might finally read the hardware hauppuage cards. I can't test it though since I sold my pvr250 last winter.

Good luck.

[lchiu7]

I have had reasonable success with a Hauppauge WinTV card and iuvcr. Iuvcr has timed recording and can access the tuner in the video card if you are using an aerial or analogue cable connection. I used to encode in MJPEG format using the PicVideo codec which doesn't take much CPU and then edit and encode the output file using VirtualDub and any one of a number of codecs for final compression,depending on whether I wanted MPEG2 or MPEG4.

[edDV]

You should seriously consider replacing that card with one that encodes in hardware (e.g. PVR 150/250/350/500). For software consider gbpvr, beyondtv, sagetv, titantv, etc.

Your machine isn't really adequate for software encoding on the fly. I think you will find reliability lacking for the PVR appliance that you want. If you capture uncompressed, you will find this a huge time waste. The machine will be tied up encoding while you will want it to be recording.

[kschang]

Frankly speaking, I agree with edDV. The non-MPEG-hardware-encoder WinTV aren't for playing PVR at all.

[lchiu7]

I would also have to agree with that. On an Athlon XP 2400+ I can capture up to 2 hours, full-frame, using a WinTV card and MJPEG compression with no frame drops. But the file is 23G(!) and needs to be encoded again. As you might expect I don't do that much and use instead a PVR250 card in my PVR.