What card's results will compare to my standalone recorder?

[nottooserious]

I've had several tv tuner cards over the years and I've never been happy with the results. So I finally bought a Panasonic DMR-ES20 standalone recorder. I record shows off of TV and I've backed up all my videos to DVD. Half of the projects I've then edited on the computer using Nero.

The quality of the video and audio is better than with any pci tuner cards I ever used. But now my recorder is dying. Instead of getting another I'm thinking about going back to using TV input on my computer.

Can anyone offer me some advice on products, etc.? Can I expect the same (or better) quality?

My system:
WinXP Home
Celeron 3 GHz
1.5 GB RAM
NVidia GEForce FX5600 AGP
Onboard sound
200 GB 7400 Hard Drive

Any help would be really appreciated--

[redwudz]

I'm not sure about better quality, but the Hauppauge cards are nice in that they use hardware encoding to MPEG-2. Not as good to edit as some low compression AVI type formats, but a lot faster as you don't need to re-encode.

Better quality is usually with a low compression AVI capture with a codec like HuffyUV or PicVideo. But you will have to factor in the encoding time to get to the MPEG-2 format.

Another option is a external box that encodes to DV format. DV is great to edit, and since it is fairly low compression, about 5:1, the quality is good. I use a Canopus ADVC-100, but there are cheaper boxes that do as well.

[lordsmurf]

The Hauppauge will easily match what you saw from a Panasonic, if not entirely better. Older AGP ATI AIW cards will too.

[nottooserious]

Thank you for the quick info!

I'm not sure about better quality, but the Hauppauge cards are nice in that they use hardware encoding to MPEG-2. Not as good to edit as some low compression AVI type formats, but a lot faster as you don't need to re-encode.

Better quality is usually with a low compression AVI capture with a codec like HuffyUV or PicVideo. But you will have to factor in the encoding time to get to the MPEG-2 format.

What do you mean by encoding time? Is it what happens immediately as the file is saved, or something I initiate before editing? I'm sure that's a dumb question, so feel free to direct me somewhere for education, if it's around.

Another option is a external box that encodes to DV format. DV is great to edit, and since it is fairly low compression, about 5:1, the quality is good. I use a Canopus ADVC-100, but there are cheaper boxes that do as well.

I've seen something like this at Sam's Club. It looks like it connects by USB2, but it may be Firewire. Is that what you mean?

Again, I'm sorry to ask such basic questions, but I'm not even sure where to begin looking for answers. Thanks for the help.

[nottooserious]

The Hauppauge will easily match what you saw from a Panasonic, if not entirely better. Older AGP ATI AIW cards will too.

I'll start checking out Hauppage cards. The AGP version of the ATI would be nice, as long as I'm not downgrading video playback from what I have now.

Thanks!

[FulciLives]

Look into the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB2 (which is an external USB 2.0 capture device) or the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 (PCI internal) or the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 (PCI internal). Please avoid the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 and the WinTV PVR 500. Those two are NOT to be trusted. The other three I mentioned are A-OK.

Also you might want to check out ---> http://www.shspvr.com/

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[stantheman1976]

I have an ATI All-In-Wonder 128MB. I record straight to MPEG-2 and the result is no different than the video fed into it. Of course, now you'd probably find the 256MB version instores which is even better I'm sure.

[SmokieStover]

I have no experience using a stand alone DVD recorder for TV, but I have plenty of experience with both the Hauppauge PVR 250 and the ATI Wonder Elite (Theater Pro 550).

At "DVD Standard Play", the PVR 250 allows 1 hour and 30 minutes of video to fit on one DVD. Using Power Cinema 2.0 or 3.0 at the "Better" setting, the ATI Wonder Elite allows a little more than 1 hour and 34 minutes to fit on one DVD. This means (taking AMC as an example....it has the lowest percentage of commercials of any of the basic cable channels), any movie in a 2 hour time slot recorded with the ATI Card at the "Better" setting will fit on one DVD when the commercials are cut out, and almost every movie on the same channel, with the same time slot, and the commercials cut out, but recorded with the PVR 250 at DVD Standard Play, WILL NOT fit on one DVD without using DVD Shrink on the Authored DVD files.....an extra, time consuming step which also lowers the video quality.

At the "Better" setting, the ATI Wonder Elite is a nice step up in video quality compared to the PVR 250 at the "DVD Standard Play" setting.

At "DVD Long Play", the PVR 250 allows about 2 hours of video on one DVD. At the "Good" setting, the ATI Wonder Elite allows 2 hours and 20 minutes of video on one DVD. Again, even at these settings, the ATI is a good step up in video quality compared to the PVR 250.

At any setting, the ATI card is a big step up in audio quality compared to the PVR 250.

If you're on analog cable (no cable or satellite box), get a 550 Pro Card with either Power Cinema 3.0 or 4.0. And forget about the children who whine about how slow Power Cinema is when surfing channels.......they never put anything to DVD! Also forget about ATI's EPG...it does not work. I have no use for the remote control, and therfore never installed it

If you are on a Cable or Satellite Box, go with the Hauppauge 350. But be prepared to use the windows registry editor one two keys to make the audio acceptable. The default settings won't be half bad if all you do is play the recordings back from the PC. But if your going to DVD, it's a different story!

[victoriabears]

From my experience the advantages of a capture card are:-

You can capture at your own choice of bit rate. eg: a 4hour tape which you know will end up 3 hours after editing can be captured at better quality than a dvd recorder at 4 hour mode.

Of course you can always record the 4 hour tape in two slogs on a dvd recorder, but certainly a JVC dvd recorder or Toshiba is more certain to give best reults.

[redwudz]

The others may have answered these, but:

What do you mean by encoding time? Is it what happens immediately as the file is saved, or something I initiate before editing? I'm sure that's a dumb question, so feel free to direct me somewhere for education, if it's around.

When you convert your video from analog (A VHS player, or a TV channel you've tuned) to digital, it's encoding. If you encode or capture in this case to a AVI type format like HuffyUV or PicVideo, you will still need to encode it again to the MPEG-2 format for a DVD. I usually edit the video when in AVI type format, before I encode it to MPEG-2. Some video cards like the Hauppauge can encode directly to MPEG-2, saving time and possible quality loss from a second encode. HuffyUV or PicVideo are low compression AVI type formats, so there will be little loss when re-encoded to MPEG-2.

I've seen something like this at Sam's Club. It looks like it connects by USB2, but it may be Firewire. Is that what you mean?

What I have is a Canopus ADVC-100. It's a hardware box that converts the analog signal to DV AVI format and outputs it to the computer via FireWire. Very nice for editing and low compression. But the files use about 13GB per hour, so you need a fair amount of hard drive space. HuffyUV or PicVideo also use quite a bit of hard drive space. http://www.canopus.com/products/ADVC110/index.php

That's a second advantage of a hardware encoder card like the Hauppauge, in that uses a lot less hard drive space and since your video is already DVD compliant, all you need is light editing and then author to DVD and burn. A hardware encoder also doesn't need a fast CPU like some AVI software encoder cards need for best quality. And you would also need a fast CPU for the AVI>MPEG-2 encoding, at least if you want it to process fairly quickly. http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/prods_pvr.html

Probably more info than you needed.