Video Card and Capture Card Suggestions?

J

JrDave2324

New Member
so as you may recall (or not) i was having issues with my computer booting up. you can read the thread here . so i took my computer in to a repair place and for some unknown reson the ATI AIW 9700 Pro wont work properly with my mobo.

what i need are some suggestions on a seperate capture and video card. for the cap card i would like the PVR, where you can schedule times for it to record and that fun stuff. someone suggested the Pinncale cards to me, but from what ive read those are crap. im thinkin about the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 . any comments/suggestions for the cap card? and i dont even have an idea for the video card, so anything would be appreciatd. as for the price range of the two combined, id like to keep it right around $200-$230 which was the price of the 9700 Pro.

THANK YOU!
 
Praetor

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
someone suggested the Pinncale cards to me, but from what ive read those are crap
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Pinnacle has some very good stuff.

im thinkin about the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250
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The Hauppage cards .... I used to have a couple of their TV tuners and it was a nightmare to configure. Personally if the costs are the same I'd go with a Pinnacle
 
J

JrDave2324

New Member
judging by the reviews on newegg, Pinncale System stuff is no good. out of 4 reviews each person gave PCTV only one starHERE . besides happauge, pinnacle, and ati aiw are they any other suggestions?

what about for the video card? it appears as though the Powercolor ATI Radeon's are the ones to go with. theres a bunch that im lookin at 9600 Pro (there are 3 different 9600 Pros on newegg), 9200 (4 different ones on newegg), and 9550. someone help me choose one of those or have another suggestoin?
 
Praetor

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
judging by the reviews on newegg, Pinncale System stuff is no good. out of 4 reviews each person gave PCTV only one star
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User reviews? If so, i wouldnt put any faith in them. Professional use Pinaccle a lot .... of course if you're looking at the ultra low-end all the models are roughly equal

As for a videocard, I'd reccomend the 9600Pro... nice pefroamcne for its price.
 
J

JrDave2324

New Member
alright thanks for all your help!

just a last question about the 9600XT....im thinkin about goin with the saphire or the gigabyte version of it. its $15 cheaper than the plain ATI and a lot of people seem to like them. gigabyte just makes sense to me since thats my mobo brand also.
 
Praetor

Praetor

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Staff member
people will tell you to avoid sapphire because they are the "budget" version of ATI .... the only thing is they have their crap assembled overseas etc and for all intents and purposes, the cards are identical .... go for the cheapest one
 
J

JrDave2324

New Member
thanks for all your help Praetor...

and i read on videohelp.com that the pvr-250 cards get some problems when theyre with an AMD processor, which is what i have. also, the review on the pctv pro said it needs a little tweaking and the right software, but after that its a damn good card. so thanks again.
 
Blind_Arrow

Blind_Arrow

New Member
Pinnacle has been good so far, ATi are using Philips technology in their AIW cards, I have never heard any complaint out of Pinnacle. as they are out there for a long time.
 
Praetor

Praetor

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pvr-250 cards get some problems when theyre with an AMD processor
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Anything by Hauppagge has problems. Ive gone through a bunch of their tuners -- nice when they work -- but its a pain in the arse to get working (optimally)
 
J

JrDave2324

New Member
yeah, i got some really good information at this site , which actually did a comparison between the two. it gives information regarding the smart and dumb cards and what that is....

the only thing im a little skeptical about is the PCTV not having an onboard processor, so doing other things on the computer while recording is not really an option. but then again the purpose of this is to replace a VCR, so i prolly wouldnt be there anyways. i guess for my situation the PVR-250 isnt worth the extra $40. hmm, so i might consider the USB2 or Deluxe version of the PCTV....too many decisons!!! :confused:

**edit: im thinking of going with the PCTV Deluxe, if i can get it for cheap enough. it's USB and has the MPEG-2 recording, which i dont think the USB2 has**
 
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Praetor

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
so doing other things on the computer while recording is not really an option
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I do video encoding day in day out and believe me, a "smart procesor" isnt gonna do jack. It will still use CPU power :)

so I might consider the USB2
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If compared to USB1 then maybe but compared to an PCI/1394 ... no way, USB2 doesnt have the sustained data xfer rates required for stable video encoding/capture
 
Praetor

Praetor

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Dunno, probably not since I can do the MPEG2 encoding myself. Of course if you want to pay for the convienience of on-the-fly MPEG2 recording (not sure if the deluxe offers that, i'm just sayin), then it comes down to a price difference. To be honest MPEG2 encoding isnt that hard ... kinda time consuming but not tricky.
 
J

JrDave2324

New Member
i think both the deluxe and pro record in tv and video in mpeg-1/-2, but the pro also records in VideoXL, PM1, and DV...whatever those are. are those three extra formats something i should even consider when choosing one or not? since i dont know what they are, i would say no, but im not sure.

if not, then which ever one i can get for cheapest would be the one to go with, correct?

so is a PCI card better for capturing then a USB2 device? i think thats what you said before but i wasnt sure.





oh yeah, what kinda capture card to you use?
 
Praetor

Praetor

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Staff member
Of the other three formats, the only one that might be of interest to you is DV but that's only realistically if you want to get involved in Adobe Premier and that kind of (calibre of) video editing and such.

As I said before, a PCI card would be a better option for tv-capture: sure you give up the flexibility and portability etc but the PCI bus is much more stable as far as sustained transfers go: USB2 has a really nice theoretical speed (which is slower than the PCI bus btw) but in actuality its realworld sustained speed isnt so great. Just my two cents
 
J

JrDave2324

New Member
you thought this was over? ... so did I ... but ive done some searching around for the last hour and looking at various forums and have come across one more card to consider instead of the Pinnacle PCTV Pro ... Leadtek WinFast TV2000 Deluxe (or Expert). what you think of this bad boy?
 
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