Hauppauge WinTV PVR-Line vs. ATI-Wonder vs. Leadtek Winfast

[VideoMann]

Hauppauge WinTV PVR-Line vs. ATI-Wonder vs. Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP

Which is the best for:
1. picture quality
2. stability,
3. recording shows at full resolution for DVD archival. 720x480

And why is Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350 at US$249 offer less than the WinTV-PVR-pci at US$199 ?

Isn't Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-pci #880 still the best Hauppauge offers in Analog TV Tuners ?

Are the higher price Hauppauge cards better than the competition
at much lower prices ?

http://www.hauppauge.com/html/products.htm#pvr

http://www.ati.com/products/pc/tvwonder/index.html

http://www.leadtek.com/mmedia/tv2000xp/tv2000xp.htm

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Can you make an argument for buying a High Definition TV card in the U.S. with so few HD TV Channels (3-5/maj.city), now that we are accustomed to 125-200 cable channels ?

Thanks for the input

[SHS]

VideoMann when get some time go my web site click on Review button then Comparison Page link oh tell me what think of it.

[fakesky]

Leadtek Winfast sucked soo bad I returned it right away..
Hauppaugen wintv PVR is solid for me, and I see no reason
getting the higher priced and newer model,
since there is little difference that justifies the price difference.

Havent tested ATI-Wounder, so I cant comment

[Satan's Cheerleader]

leadtek winfast does suck. when i had it, most of the captures were buggy. like you couldn't use the slider bar to scan through video. i'm amazed at all the positive reviews its gotten. avoid it.

[bbb]

SHS,

When are you reviewing the WinTV PVR 250/350?

You keep commenting about the 250/350 but your review is not even up.

What's up with that?

[SHS]

I be doing a review of the WinTV PVR 350 bbb this is one I be getting no matter what I can't live out FM tuner anyway, beside steve did a nice review that rigth on money I think, soon I can get my bloody hands on it you see review in tell then you have to wait just like me.
As for 2nd part I do have inside contact.
No I'am not voting in this this poll bbb.

[VideoMann]

Keep them votes coming.

[Sulik]

My vote would go for the ATI AIW, but it's not in the list

[VideoMann]

The idea is to choose a card for it's TV tuning and capture abilities not for other features like game graphics. Also the poll concentrates on inexpensive solutions not top graphic cards that attempt to do it all.

You can always state a preference as a comment and choose other in the Poll. Polls are not made to be all inclusive but actually to focus on a particular area of questioning.

If there is a card that you have very good experience but is not listed on the Poll by all means mention it. The same for terrible cards.

Thanks

[ntonix]

WinTV PVR PCI 880 series doesn't worth more than a regular TV Tuner card. If you intend to use it as a realtime MPEG1/2 hardware encoder, just forget it. It sucks as a capture card. I think there's some problems with audio/video signal lags,that is if your source videos,eg.VCR or camcorder has gaps/blank signal on the tapes or any other minor distortion, then chances are that the MPEG1/2 result will be very awful.The drivers are only in VFW form, and the WDM is still in beta version after years of development (which you can download only from SHS website at www.shspvr.com, not from Hauppauge's official site). I gotta start my VCR and camcorder first until there's a video signal for me to safely click the record button on WinTV2000 for getting good result. I tried to capture videos using AVI_IO which is known as one of the best video capture apps, and everytime there's a blank signal from source video, there would be 10 to 15 dropped frames. I test this capturing process using same source with Snazzi DVC-II and ATI AIW 8500 Radeon, and both of them were free from this probs.

[Banko]

I like the TV Wonder VE, but it takes allot of time to set it up, once you have done that, then it's good!

[VideoMann]

I do not yet own a Hauppauge card but I have seen the capture ability of the Hauppauge TV PVR (PCI model #880) and it is very, very good. It was the performance of this card that caught my attention on the quality of Hauppauge.

It is strange to me that many people were behind this card but now that the PVR 250 came out, nobody praises or does a constructive criticism of the original #880 model.

The #880 model has features or characteristics that the PVR 250 does not, and whatever bugs the #880 has , there are workarounds that have been posted while the PVR 250 continues to show many problems with consumers. It seems to me that from the onset the PVR250 has more problems and limitations than the original #880 model, although without direct experience it is hard to draw hard conclusions as to which is really better.

The fact that Hauppauge still sells the #880 model shows that the PVR 250 is not a direct replacement or an improvement necessarily. It would be helpful to do a comparison of problems, limitations, and best usage recommendation between both of these models, since they are the most popular.

[ntonix]

The fact that Hauppauge still sells the 880 series is a proof of their ignorance and unprofessional behaviour. WinTV PVR 880 series DO have some serious bugs, especially at the realtime MPEG1/MPEG2 encoder,the KFIR chip, which I think can't handle the dropped frames that occured when there's audio/video signal lags from source video. This has been confirmed by Hauppauge's tech support department themselves from an e-mail I received when I asked them about this problems, and as far as I know,no action has been taken to fix the flaw, and the drivers didn't fix it too.

[VideoMann]

Thanks for your input "ntonix".

We need more comments please, positive or negative but based on facts not guesses or feelings.

[leebo]

The ATI AIW Radeon sucks big time.

I built a 1200mhz Tbird specifically for it
256megs SIS chipset
Seperate, 60 gig HDD
Running XP

Also running the latest drivers and MMC (7.7?).

When capturing (timeshifting) the news, the picture quality looks film like, a sign of low resolution.
There is slight strobing in the picture, which I attribute to dropped frames.
If the timeshift is over 90 minutes, and you try to FF or RW, the software seems to lose it's place.
If you pause live TV for too long, the picture zooms in and the only way I've found to zoom back out is to stop timeshifting (return to live mode).
If you try to bring the MMC controls back on-screen, the program studders and it takes a good 10-15 seconds to recover.

The minimum requirenments for this card is something like a 500mhz cpu, but I don't believe a 1200mhz is enough!

I hate this card!