Hauppauge PVR, AIW, Pinnacle. Take a pick...

[Conqueror]

I want to watch TV on my PC and also capture video from digital camera and VCR so that I could make my own VCDs. I am looking to purchase a TV tuner/video capture card for my new computer P4 1.8GHz, Win XP, GeForce3 Ti200.

I have done quite a bit of research about various cards that are available on the market today. I am particularly interested in the Hauppauge PVR (Personal Video Recorder) but I need some opinions before I make my decision. Is the card good as it sounds? There are three main features which I am interested in this card:

1) It's maximum resolution (for viewing TV/video) is 1600x1200. All TV cards from hauppauge have this resolution. No other card on the market (from popular makes like ATI, Pinnacle etc.) have got a resolution of higher than 768x576.

2) It can capture at a resolution of 768x576/MPEG1 and 768x576/MPEG2. No other TV-tuner card on the market can capture in MPEG2 unless they use another software to encode MPEG1 to MPEG2.

3) It's got a built-in hardware encoder on the mainboard, which is much faster than software encoding and it also encodes to MPEG2 (Layer 2) with a compression ratio of 100:1.

There are also some drawbacks.

1) I quote this from a website which says the folowing in its conclusion for the Hauppauge PVR:

"This is a good board if you mainly want to do time-shifting, your budget is limited, and you don't have a powerful enough CPU to run the ATI All-in-Wonder (AIW). If you're after high-quality video captures, the AIW is a far better product: with both boards the highest quality is obtained by capturing to AVI, then using a separate encoder. The AIW should also produce a somewhat better AVI, since it's a better-specified board, with fewer video problems as a rule than WinTV boards. And given a fast enough machine, the AIW will produce far better MPEG output than the PVR. The AIW is also a better overall value, unless you already have a good 3D card.

On the other hand, if you're willing to go beyond 3 Mbit/s for full-D1 video, the PVR might look better to you. Like any half-decent encoder, it can produce good video at 8 Mbit/s without trouble."


Is it true that the AIW produces better Mpeg and AVI files than PVR? (Can anyone verify this?)

2) It doesn't have a video out! (well thats what I read anyway, can anyone verify this too?)


The ATI-AIW does look like a good card too but the problem is that it also has a built in graphics card. I already have one of the best graphics card on the market today, the nVidia GeForce3 Ti200. I simply want to watch TV on my PC, and capture video from digital camera and VCR so that I could make my own VCDs.


My friend has got a Pinnacle PCTV Rave and he always tells me all the wonderful things the card can do. I have considered this card too but it is quite basic, I want to do a bit more.

I once bought a Hauppauge WinTV Primio for my IBM Cyrix computer (ancient I know!), but due to a compatability problem, I had to return it back. I could never watch TV in full screen, but I did manage to watch it in a window although my computer used to freeze up at the same time. So I do have a good idea of how the picture quality of WinTV Primio is like when viewed in a window (which was very sharp). I also have a good idea of how the software is like that comes with Hauppauge TV Cards (I didn't like it that much). I heard that the PVR comes with a similar sort of software with not much else (verification please.)

[ct991]

I too am in the market for a TV Tuner/capture card. I was thinking of the ATI TV Wonder but from what I've heard the software and technical support are crap. Also, people on this forum seem to be constantly bashing this card.

Can anyone recommend a high-end TV card that has capabilities for hardware MPEG encoding (a "helper" for the CPU or a complete hardware encoding solution within the card).

[SHS]

Hauppauge WinTV-PVR

MPEG Video Capture Resolution support
Horizontal: 160, 320, 352 CIF, 480, 544, 640, 704(NTSC/PAL)
Vertical: 112, 240, 480(NTSC) 144, 288, 576(PAL)

Audio Sampling Frequency
Sampling rates: 32.0000, 44.1000, 48.0000
Audio Bit Rate: 64, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320, 384

AVI Video Capture Resolution support
Horizontal: 80, 120, 128, 160, 240, 256, 320, 544, 640(NTSC)
Vertical: 60, 90, 120, 180, 192, 240, 480(NTSC)
Horizontal: 96, 120, 128, 192, 240, 256, 384, 768(PAL)
Vertical: 72, 90, 96, 144, 180, 192, 288, 576(PAL)
Note: PAL can do more custom Video Resolution then NTSC.

Note: DVD are done 704 to 720 x 480(NTSC), 576(PAL) format size at 8MB VBR

Maximum resolution for TV viewing is 1600x1200 full screen with WDM drivers under Win9x/ME/2000/XP then there is VfW drivers that kick monitor down screen size to 640X480 full screen under Win2000/XP only in tell we get WDM drivers but with VfW drivers for Win9x OS it come with directshow drv so it can go 1600x1200 full screen.

Hauppauge WinTV-PVR is Hardware MPEG encode.
ATI Radeon ALL-IN-WONDER is Software MPEG encode.
Pinnacle PCTV Rave you need to buy Software MPEG encode or do it the long hardware way.

See my web site on more info http://shstvpvr.150m.com/

[dattrax]

I actually bought a WinTVPVR a couple of weeks ago, and promptly returned it due to a few problems.

1, The quality was absolutly crap (even at 12mbps). Most DVD's average at around 6mbps. The problem I think was down to the lack of a decent pre-filter and the KFir encoder they use. The KFir has a motion search window of +-100, which means that it probably wasn't able to find the best vector, but as I couldn't find any datasheets on it I couldn't validate that. Also sharp edges had large DCT errors due to the high frequency components.

2, The audio/video went out of sync (which was the greatest prblem of all)

3, audio pops and cracks at anything over 192kbps

[mjm]

I own both AIW pro PCI and Hauppauge PVR PCI. The AIW is an ok card but it cannot realistically capture realtime mpeg2, even with a fast machine. It can be used to capture AVI and then compress with an mpeg encoder, but this takes about 16 hours for the average movie.

On the other hand I find the PVR excellent. I have had none of the problems others have mentioned, and the quality is similar to the TMPGenc encoded stuff. I would recommend the latest drivers, and the registry entry (mentioned under PVR reviews) which allows advanced encoder options to be manipulated.

If you want the best encoded mpeg2 you can, forget realtime encoding. If, like me you want a usable system where you can watch it the same week! (i burn mine to watch on a DVD player), try the PVR...

PS patience seems all important with any of these thing, it took me about two months to get the AIW working properly when I first bought it, the gain was that the PVR was working in 6 hours

[Conqueror]

Thanks for the replies fellas.

Does anyone have any experiences with Pinnacle PCTV Rave??? What is the quality like when watching TV, and what is the capturing quality like?

I am also thinking about getting this to watch and capture from TV. And then buy a seperate capture card to capture from camcorder/video. What do you think?

[sommersby]

I actually bought a WinTVPVR a couple of weeks ago, and promptly returned it due to a few problems.

1, The quality was absolutly crap (even at 12mbps). Most DVD's average at around 6mbps. The problem I think was down to the lack of a decent pre-filter and the KFir encoder they use. The KFir has a motion search window of +-100, which means that it probably wasn't able to find the best vector, but as I couldn't find any datasheets on it I couldn't validate that. Also sharp edges had large DCT errors due to the high frequency components.

2, The audio/video went out of sync (which was the greatest prblem of all)

3, audio pops and cracks at anything over 192kbps

I had the same problems with this card about a year ago and took it back, then I tried the ati tv wonder card, better capture quality but could never bet an hour of capture without it locking up my machine, took it back. Then got a tv99 card for around $40, used this card for over a year with no problems, the only reason I cahnged was I wanted to upgrade my graghics card so went to the ato AIW radeon and have been very satisfied, since you have a good graphics card now I would not recommend the AIW, but the tv99 or equalivent would be a good choice, if you machine is slow then you may want a card with hardware encoding but be advised, untill you get up in the $20,000 range of hardware encoders, software encoding will always look better.