Hauppage PVR cards: Anyone own one out there?

Im thinking abt getting this bundle to make my own PVR with. see link

http://store.snapstream.com/btvand250btv.html

The thing Im unsure of is if I can take the output of my PC and play
it on a real standard TV? Or can I only watch recorded shows on the
PC monitor itself?

Ideally Id like a card that allows BOTH...... watch captured video on
standard TV....and/or PC monitor. My choice

Advice?

wrote in message
...
Im thinking abt getting this bundle to make my own PVR with. see link

http://store.snapstream.com/btvand250btv.html

The thing Im unsure of is if I can take the output of my PC and play
it on a real standard TV? Or can I only watch recorded shows on the
PC monitor itself?

Ideally Id like a card that allows BOTH...... watch captured video on
standard TV....and/or PC monitor. My choice

Advice?

The TV-out part is going to come with your video card. Usually S-video..

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:59:18 -0500, wrote:

Im thinking abt getting this bundle to make my own PVR with. see link

http://store.snapstream.com/btvand250btv.html

The thing Im unsure of is if I can take the output of my PC and play
it on a real standard TV? Or can I only watch recorded shows on the
PC monitor itself?


For that particular card, it only tunes and encodes video/audio. You
have to watch the video on your PC. monitor, unless you have an MPEG2
decoder card, or TV video out on your graphics card.

I think I heard somewhere about a card that outputs video as well
though.

Ideally Id like a card that allows BOTH...... watch captured video on
standard TV....and/or PC monitor. My choice

Advice?

The TV-out part is going to come with your video card. Usually S-video..

So you are saying that I should look at my current video card and see
if it has an S video out port?

Or do you mean that the Hauppauge card will also have an S video out
port?

If the latter....I think that S video port on the Hauppauge card was S
vide IN port only..... no output.

I could be wrong tho. That's why Im asking here. G

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 09:49:01 -0500, wrote:

The TV-out part is going to come with your video card. Usually S-video..

So you are saying that I should look at my current video card and see
if it has an S video out port?

Or do you mean that the Hauppauge card will also have an S video out
port?

If the latter....I think that S video port on the Hauppauge card was S
vide IN port only..... no output.

I could be wrong tho. That's why Im asking here. G

Not on that Hauppauge card. it inputs video/audio only. You have to
have a separate card to output video, usually on your graphics card.

Not on that Hauppauge card. it inputs video/audio only. You have to
have a separate card to output video, usually on your graphics card.

Darn

That's what I was afraid of. I just looked at the stock video card in
my Dell 4100 and it doesn't have any video OUTS at all.

Arent there any Hauppauge PVR cards that also have video outputs as
well?

Or....any PVR cards period that have video outs?

Or is one expected to use a SEPARATE video card with video outputs in
conjunction with these PVR cards?

As you can tell....Im a bit confused on all this. G

In article ,
nvalid says...
On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 09:49:01 -0500, wrote:

The TV-out part is going to come with your video card. Usually S-video..

So you are saying that I should look at my current video card and see
if it has an S video out port?

Or do you mean that the Hauppauge card will also have an S video out
port?

If the latter....I think that S video port on the Hauppauge card was S
vide IN port only..... no output.

I could be wrong tho. That's why Im asking here. G

Not on that Hauppauge card. it inputs video/audio only. You have to
have a separate card to output video, usually on your graphics card.



While that is true of the pvr 250; the pvr 350 has tv out.

Not on that Hauppauge card. it inputs video/audio only. You have to
have a separate card to output video, usually on your graphics card.

Darn

That's what I was afraid of. I just looked at the stock video card in
my Dell 4100 and it doesn't have any video OUTS at all.

Arent there any Hauppauge PVR cards that also have video outputs as
well?

Or....any PVR cards period that have video outs?

Or is one expected to use a SEPARATE video card with video outputs in
conjunction with these PVR cards?

As you can tell....Im a bit confused on all this. G


Hi,

There are some analog video hardware encoder + hardware decoder PCI
cards available and I think that's what you are looking for:

1) Navis-Pro (www.pentamedia.com)
2) Hauppauge PVR-350 (not the PVR-250)
3) MPG150i/160 (www.yuan.com.tw)

I believe all these capture cards use the same encoder/decoder chip
(ivac15/16)
so basically they would have the same features and similar encoding
quality. The different is the software.

I have the Navis-Pro so I will comment more on this particular card.
Basically you can capture VCD/SVCD/MPEG1/MPEG2 (full D1 or half D1 -
NTSC or PAL) in real time. Some of the cards above also have built on
TV tunner so you can watch/capture TV/Cable boardcast. You can either
output the capture video (or play a pre-captured video files from
hardrive/cd/dvd) to PC monitor OR to an external video monitor (TV).
You can pause the video and resume watching it while without missing
any part of the source video (time-slip feature). I don't know for
sure the number of input/output options for card #2 & #3. But on the
Navis-Pro there a both RCA & S-video + audio (L/R) inputs and both
RCA & S-video + audio (L/R) output. So you don't need video output
connector from your primary video card.

You don't need a high-end (fast) PC to use one of the above card. My
CPU is an Athlon 2400XP and the processor usage while capturing is
under 10% (output to external video monitor/TV - via buit-in hardware
decoder) but around 40% if view on PC monitor (via software decoder).
By the way, one of my friend PC is a Duron 800Mhz and his PCU usage is
not much differ than mine.

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 11:03:01 -0500, wrote:

Not on that Hauppauge card. it inputs video/audio only. You have to
have a separate card to output video, usually on your graphics card.

Darn

That's what I was afraid of. I just looked at the stock video card in
my Dell 4100 and it doesn't have any video OUTS at all.

Arent there any Hauppauge PVR cards that also have video outputs as
well?

Or....any PVR cards period that have video outs?


I may have heard of one, but cannot say anything more about it.

Or is one expected to use a SEPARATE video card with video outputs in
conjunction with these PVR cards?

That is the idea, or watchTV on your monitor.


As you can tell....Im a bit confused on all this. G