Newbie tuner/hardware questions

[tuckster]

I have a desktop that I would like to convert into a PVR. I’ve done some research and I’m at the verge of picking up a tv-tuner to use with GB-PVR and I’d like some suggestions. Here are the specs of the desktop:

Sony Vaio Desktop
- P4 1.5ghz (478-socket)
- 512 mb RAM pc-133 (that’s all the board will take)
- 60 gb hard drive
- DVD rom (no burner)
- FX 5200 128 mb video card (AGP w/ no dvi out)
- PCI slot 1 (USB 2.0 card since board has only 1.1)
- PCI slot 2&3 are open
- I also am inheriting a Harmony remote (not sure which model) in the near future

I don’t have cable or anything like that so I’m limited to local channels which at the current time are all broadcast in analog and digital with some HD content on the digital stations. I’d like to take advantage of the free OTA HD, but I think I will have to wait until I have a more powerful PC. Upgrading this old VAIO doesn’t seem like a good idea given its socket, lack of USB 2.0, slow bus speed etc. Am I right, or is this computer up to the task of HD playback?

I’d like to start playing around with GB-PVR, but I need to get a capture card first. I was thinking that I could get a combo card so that I could utilize the NTSC side now with my weak computer and then utilize both NTSC/ATSC with a decent system in the future. Or should I just get an analog card now and then upgrade cards later?

Here are the cards that I have found that look like they might work:
ATI 650 (~$70 @ Newegg)
HVR 1600 (~$85 @ Newegg)
ATI 550 analog only(~$40 @ Newegg)
HVR 950 usb (~$60 various places)

Here are my questions about these cards:
Will the 550 or 650 perform the same on analog duties (in terms of processor utilization, picture quality)?

Will the hvr 1600 record ntsc and watch live atsc at the same time or can it only use one tuner at a time? How about the 650?

As far as I can tell, the hvr 950 doesn't have hardware encoding. Is that correct? It will require more processor than the other devices right?

Sorry for the long post. Please help me if you can.

[sub]

- P4 1.5ghz (478-socket)
- FX 5200 128 mb video card (AGP w/ no dvi out

Both of these probably rule out any high def stuff. You could record it, but not play it back.

Here are the cards that I have found that look like they might work:
ATI 650 (~$70 @ Newegg)
HVR 1600 (~$85 @ Newegg)
ATI 550 analog only(~$40 @ Newegg)
HVR 950 usb (~$60 various places)

Here are my questions about these cards:
Will the 550 or 650 perform the same on analog duties (in terms of processor utilization, picture quality)?

Not looking at the prices, I'd be picking the HVR1600 since it is the most future proofed, and will let you do analog and the same time as digital.

As far as I can tell, the hvr 950 doesn't have hardware encoding. Is that correct? It will require more processor than the other devices right?

It doesnt have hardware encoding, which means the analog side of the device is not usable in GB-PVR. Digital can be used, but thats because the broadcaster encodes prior to transmission.

[flyswatta]

For $85 and the reasons sub mentioned above, you might want to go for the HVR1600.

You might want to look around for a Hauppauge PVR150/500 (500 being a dual tuner) but I'm not sure what they're going for these days - this is an analog only tuner.

Another option if you don't want to invest a lot to just "try it out", go to ebay and search for "Emuzed" there's a MAUI III G card for about $10. Most likely it's a pull from a gateway media center machine and I've had good luck with mine. It's analog only and has onboard hardware encoders, but it doesn't have built in IR, but for $10 it's a way to play for cheap. There's a link to the drivers on the wiki.

Anyway, food for thought.

[Deusxmachina]

The 1600 has been on sale numerous times at Circuit City for $60 after rebate, so that might be something to keep an eye on.

I think your computer will be real iffy with HD.

If OTA is the only thing most likely in your future, I wouldn't spend much on an analog-only card. You can get them cheap used if you want to play around. In another year+ those signals will be turned off, and then the card is worthless. Anything you spend decent money on now should be able to be used in the future.

And I'll add this: if you use OTA signals, that's a lot of cheap (free) HDTV. The sooner you put a decent HTPC computer together for it, the longer you can enjoy it, and a decent system now should last until it breaks since HDTV signals aren't going to change anytime soon.

If you want to test some HD, sample clip websites aren't too hard to find. Can start by playing some movie trailers from apple.com

[girdhar]

Hi,I want to buy a printer , a laser one .which company would you prefer me to buy ?I want printer for photo printing.any advice greatly appreciated.

[tuckster]

Thanks for the replies. I downloaded a 720p clip from dvico's demos and it played fine on my old machine. But I tried a 1080p clip from apple's previews and it was super-slow motion.

At any rate, I know I will need to upgrade hardware to really enjoy the pvr experience. I may try to get a cheap ntsc card on ebay as suggested so that I can get familiar with GBPVR while I save up for better hardware.

My other thought is to use the desktop as a ntsc client, but as an atsc server. I don't really know what if I'm using the terminology correctly or if my idea is feasible, but basically I'd use the desktop for viewing live tv on my tv (sd tv monitor anyway) and recording in analog, have timeshifting available in analog and then record atsc content with the desktop and serve it to our laptop that is capable of playback.

Thanks again for the help.

[tuckster]

I pulled the trigger and ordered the hvr-1600 from Newegg. Anyone know what my odds of getting the mail in rebate from Hauppauge are?

[flyswatta]

My other thought is to use the desktop as a ntsc client, but as an atsc server. I don't really know what if I'm using the terminology correctly or if my idea is feasible, but basically I'd use the desktop for viewing live tv on my tv (sd tv monitor anyway) and recording in analog, have timeshifting available in analog and then record atsc content with the desktop and serve it to our laptop that is capable of playback.

You should be fine doing this. I record ATSC on my GBPVR box and play it back on my main computer via a mapped drive. I can't playback HD with a GBPVR client (something about the protocols and streaming) but HD plays just fine on my main computer with Media Player Classic or Windows Media Player 10.

[tuckster]

follow up:

I got the hvr-1600 last night and started playing with it, but I have not had a lot of time yet.

I first installed the drivers and the WinTV software that comes with the tuner and I was able to pick up almost 20 channels (most are duplicates as they are broadcast in atsc and ntsc).

So far I am able to get the ntsc tuner to work in pvrX2, but it doesn't seem to be picking up the ATSC tuner. I know I get channels because I can get them in WinTV, but I must not have the capture source setup properly. Any suggestions?

Also, I downloaded the trial of purevideo decoder that enables hardware decoding on my graphics card and my machine is able to play 720p and 1080i stuff at about 70% cpu utilization. So far all of the atsc channels have played pretty smoothly in WinTV.

[bogyver]

To use the digital side you need to setup it up as a bda source and then set up the listings and then you need to "map the digital channels" by doing a channel scan to map the actual freg's that the channels broadcasted on to the channel numbers in the guide
And when the 2009 switch over happens you will need to do that again because most of the stations are going to switch the digital broadcasts over to the old analog broad cast freq's. Right now almost all digital stations are broadcasted in the uhf band but will move back to the vhf after the switch over.