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Looking for a PVR card (Long)
I have decided to take an old case/power supply/motherboard and turn it into
a PVR. The power supply is 350W and the motherboard is a Gigabyte with 512Mb RAM and 800Mhz AMD processor. I have a DVD-ROM drive that I am going to put in it as well as a Western Digital® 80Gb Hard Drive that will run Windows XP Pro ®. The motherboard has integrated sound but I will most likely upgrade to a higher quality surround sound card when I have saved enough coin. I should probably also mention that I am in the United States and I only have basic expanded cable, no digital and no premium channels. My only question is "What is the best PVR card for me?" I have looked at several and the top contenders a AVerMedia Ultra TV PCI 350 or the Aver TV Studio Nvidia Personal Cinema (FX based) Haupauge WinTV-PVR-350 Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe I haven't done much research on any of the ATI cards because much of the information that I have stumbled upon mentions that their drivers are often [always] buggy and I want something that will work right from the box. In addition to this I couldn't find any evidence that titantv.com services support any of the ATI cards. Also, I couldn't find much information readily available for the ATI PVR line of cards. Here is what I intend to do. I want to be able to pause/rewind live TV (duh!) I would like to be able to record TV to the hard drive. With the titantv.com service (mentioned in the previous paragraph) I can schedule recording up to eight days in advance, maybe even more as the guide seems to provide 14 days of programming information. I am thinking of getting into DVD authoring as well. If I find that I have the time I would like to save some of my favorite TV shows as well as convert home movies. This PVR PC will only be used as a PVR. I will not be running any unnecessary apps or games. I do intend to hook it to a TV (Toshiba 36") through S-Video. This PVR PC will also act as my DVD player as well. I am willing to spend around $200.00 or so but could talk myself into $250 if necessary. I just don't want to spend $125 only to realize two weeks later that if I had spend an additional $30 I could have gotten better quality or an option or two. Here are my questions: Is going VIVO the best route or should I buy an additional video card with outputs? If I go with a VIVO card, will that card send the DVD signal out to the TV? As I write this I am unsure about VIVO support for any of the above mentioned cards. If these cards do not support VIVO can somebody refer me to a make/model that supports VIVO? Nvidia line: What is the difference between the FX5200, FX5600 and the FX5900? Will the more expensive card provide a better quality PVR experience? Better options? Opinions? Facts? If I record to the hard drive for future playback then delete do I need to be concerned with frame rate and/or frame drop? What about if I decide to go into DVD authoring? Is this going to be an issue? For DVD authoring, what is the preferred method of capturing and encoding? I have read that MPEG2 is the best but I am an amateur in this field. How difficult is it to navigate Windows® when using a TV instead of a monitor. Are the fonts difficult to read? What about reading web pages and working with applications that will be necessary from time to time? Are some cards better than others when dealing with this situation? In closing, I have done MUCH research on the topic of PVR cards over the past three or four days. The preceding questions are the ones that I have not been able to answer. Please forgive me if any of these questions have been posted/answered recently. I am also open to suggestions to any other makes/models that anyone out there has used. Thanks, -Lydokane- ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
#2
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Lydokane wrote: I have decided to take an old case/power supply/motherboard and turn it into a PVR. The power supply is 350W and the motherboard is a Gigabyte with 512Mb RAM and 800Mhz AMD processor. I have a DVD-ROM drive that I am going to put in it as well as a Western Digital® 80Gb Hard Drive that will run Windows XP Pro ®. The motherboard has integrated sound but I will most likely upgrade to a higher quality surround sound card when I have saved enough coin. I should probably also mention that I am in the United States and I only have basic expanded cable, no digital and no premium channels. My only question is "What is the best PVR card for me?" I have looked at several and the top contenders a AVerMedia Ultra TV PCI 350 or the Aver TV Studio Nvidia Personal Cinema (FX based) Haupauge WinTV-PVR-350 Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe I haven't done much research on any of the ATI cards because much of the information that I have stumbled upon mentions that their drivers are often [always] buggy and I want something that will work right from the box. In addition to this I couldn't find any evidence that titantv.com services support any of the ATI cards. Also, I couldn't find much information readily available for the ATI PVR line of cards. Here is what I intend to do. I want to be able to pause/rewind live TV (duh!) I would like to be able to record TV to the hard drive. With the titantv.com service (mentioned in the previous paragraph) I can schedule recording up to eight days in advance, maybe even more as the guide seems to provide 14 days of programming information. I am thinking of getting into DVD authoring as well. If I find that I have the time I would like to save some of my favorite TV shows as well as convert home movies. This PVR PC will only be used as a PVR. I will not be running any unnecessary apps or games. I do intend to hook it to a TV (Toshiba 36") through S-Video. This PVR PC will also act as my DVD player as well. I am willing to spend around $200.00 or so but could talk myself into $250 if necessary. I just don't want to spend $125 only to realize two weeks later that if I had spend an additional $30 I could have gotten better quality or an option or two. Here are my questions: Is going VIVO the best route or should I buy an additional video card with outputs? If I go with a VIVO card, will that card send the DVD signal out to the TV? As I write this I am unsure about VIVO support for any of the above mentioned cards. If these cards do not support VIVO can somebody refer me to a make/model that supports VIVO? Nvidia line: What is the difference between the FX5200, FX5600 and the FX5900? Will the more expensive card provide a better quality PVR experience? Better options? Opinions? Facts? If I record to the hard drive for future playback then delete do I need to be concerned with frame rate and/or frame drop? What about if I decide to go into DVD authoring? Is this going to be an issue? For DVD authoring, what is the preferred method of capturing and encoding? I have read that MPEG2 is the best but I am an amateur in this field. How difficult is it to navigate Windows® when using a TV instead of a monitor. Are the fonts difficult to read? What about reading web pages and working with applications that will be necessary from time to time? Are some cards better than others when dealing with this situation? In closing, I have done MUCH research on the topic of PVR cards over the past three or four days. The preceding questions are the ones that I have not been able to answer. Please forgive me if any of these questions have been posted/answered recently. I am also open to suggestions to any other makes/models that anyone out there has used. Thanks, -Lydokane- ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- Buy a Tivo and stop worrying about it. Our family could NOT watch TV without it. It doesn't get any easier than a Tivo set top box. I know that's not what you wanted to see-sorry. Have you tried any of the HTPC type web pages? There is alot of good info out there, but I agree. There is no clear choice now. Windows looks pretty bad on a TV unless you have plasma. The whole 60 refresh rate for the TV thing ruins it for the Windows desktop. Programs like myHTPC can make manuevering and reading a tad better. It can be found he http://myhtpc.net/ Best wishes neopolaris Peace, Love, Tivo |
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