Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350 hardware decoder?

[pgu]

Hi!

I am trying to build a PVR on my old and slow PC so I figure I need some hardware assistance while playing the recordings...
Is this thing worth trying or should I get some other decoder card or just a TV-out card would be OK on Celeron 500 with 300MB RAM?

Thanks!

[sub]

I dont really know what to tell you. The recommended minimum CPU for use with GB-PVR is a 1GHz PIII class CPU, regardless of if you're using a PVR350 hardware decoder.

The PVR350 would help with the video playback side of things, but the menus, OSD and general responsive-ness of the app would suck on a Celeron 500. Also the PVR350 hardware decoder hasnt been offically support in GB-PVR for the last couple of years, so it may or may not work for you. This hardware decoder would cause machine lockups and BSOD errors for about 50% of users.

[pgu]

Hm, I am not sure I'd want such decoder then
Are there any hardware decoders that are supported?

[sub]

Are there any hardware decoders that are supported?

These days they dont really create hardware decoders in the same sense that they did with the PVR350 in the past. Now you tend to use a software decoder, which has the ability to use the hardware acceleration features of modern video cards (nvidia/ati etc).

That slow CPU would still be a problem though, regardless.

[pgu]

How about something like
http://www0.shopping.com/xPF-Sigma-Desig...agic-Xcard
Would GBPVR work with it?

[sub]

Thats a really old (now dead?) product. It did work with GB-PVR a couple years back, but no longer supported either. You're much better off with a regular video card with hardware acceleration.

[pgu]

It sems like there is no way I can get a PVR from my box unless I upgrade it to the point it could handle software decoding, right?

[sub]

Unfortunately, I think you're correct.