[j3rt]

I'm looking to pick up a tuner/capture card for my PC. I'm not too interested actually watcing TV, but I'd like it to be able to tune and record shows ( rogers no digital box). Recorded video should be to .AVI or something usable. If there's cracks availible to tune digital channels without a box even better.

Suggestions? Comments on one you might own?

thx.

[NOS2Go4Me]

I've got the latest ATI TV Wonder Pro card at home in my main box. I've used it twice :P

Normally it does reecord to uncompressed AVI IIRC. It's been a while, however.

I believe it will also record to MPEG2. The newer cards will do H264 hi-def encoding, which could be useful to you down the road.

Seeing as AMD/ATI are out of the direct retail TV card game now... just about anything Hauppage will work for you.

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?minorcatid=1271

Just make sure you get either a PCI or PCI-Express card, depending on what you have for expansion slots. PCI-E will be better for you, especially if you want to do any hi-def recording / capture in the future. I'd also recommend that you have no less than 2GB of RAM and LOTS of hard drive space (like over half free).

[schade]

i'd go with either a Hauppauge HD-PVR box, or get a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 HD card

and if you plan on hi-def recording you absolutely want no less than 2gb of ram, 4gb to be safe

[NefCanuck]

schade,Dec 22 2008, 11:24 AM Wrote:i'd go with either a Hauppauge HD-PVR box, or get a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 HD card

and if you plan on hi-def recording you absolutely want no less than 2gb of ram, 4gb to be safe
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But 4GB means they need to be running a 64 bit O/S 'cause all a 32 bit O/S will ever see is 3GB (That was one of the reasons I took the plunge and bought a copy of Vista 64 for the desktop, finally access all the RAM I actually bought back in the day :P)

Just waiting for two days to do the switchover :ph34r:

NefCanuck

[NOS2Go4Me]

^^ 3.5GB, actually :P according to my new laptop.

I'd be running 64-bit XP right now if not for the fact our remote access solution doesn't have a 64-bit client. :(

[NefCanuck]

NOS2Go4Me,Dec 22 2008, 02:57 PM Wrote:^^ 3.5GB, actually :P according to my new laptop.

I'd be running 64-bit XP right now if not for the fact our remote access solution doesn't have a 64-bit client. :(
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It won't run in 32bit compatability mode? I'm running the 32 bit Citrix client on the 64 bit laptop with no issues (thank god... asking about Vista with our IT "Help Desk" gets the same reaction as saying the Martians are coming... blank stare city)

Hell, if you need someone with a 64 bit OS to test it...

NefCanuck

[NOS2Go4Me]

Ahh, you're running it on Vista 64? I think we had a successful test run with that one...

I prefer XP 64 as it "seems" quicker and has lower OS overhead - I use it constantly at work in my "dev environment", running 3-4 VMs at once in MS Virtual Server 2005 SP1 X64.

Maybe I'll have to give it another shot. For what I'm doing with it, I don't have any 64-bit binaries for my intensive tasks (yet) that would drastically or even slightly improve my productivity.

[hardk0re]

I'd say the ATI Theatre 650, all your recordings are gonna be in standard def. if your recording a rogers HD stream as theres nothing that can take the HD signal from the box since its uncompressed and the hardware to re-compress it would be pretty intense right now to do it on the fly. If your recording free to air HD signals the pvr will record in HD. Using hte media center portion of Vista to record your stuff works pretty good.

I run Vista Media Center on my primary TV, and watch all my tv through it and it works pretty good. I do like the XP media center better for stability and simplicity.

[ZTWsugardaddy]

I run a Hauppauge 1600 on a Dell Vostro desktop with a low end 512 mb nvidia card. It's a dual tuner so I can record both Rogers cable in SD and OTA HD with a channelmaster antenna in the attic. I didn't like the WinTv software that came with the tuner, so I purchased BeyondTV which has a "showsqueeze" feature which lets me convert the huge captured avi into a much smaller Divx avi.

[NOS2Go4Me]

hardk0re,Dec 22 2008, 08:22 PM Wrote:I'd say the ATI Theatre 650, all your recordings are gonna be in standard def. if your recording a rogers HD stream as theres nothing that can take the HD signal from the box since its uncompressed and the hardware to re-compress it would be pretty intense right now to do it on the fly.  If your recording free to air HD signals the pvr will record in HD.  Using hte media center portion of Vista to record your stuff works pretty good. 

I run Vista Media Center on my primary TV, and watch all my tv through it and it works pretty good.  I do like the XP media center better for stability and simplicity.
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Kev - I need to yak with you about FTA again in detail in the new year - but soon :)

[j3rt]

Ztw, does the hauppage pull the rogers schedule automatically or from some online source?

[ZTWsugardaddy]

j3rt,Dec 27 2008, 05:58 PM Wrote:Ztw, does the hauppage pull the rogers schedule automatically or from some online source?
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BeyondTV software picks up the guide info from online after I enter/identify Rogers Richmond Hill as the cable source.