PVR without a PVR card!

[slayer]

OK, working on new angle here. Apologies if its a dumb question.

I dont actually need my PVR-350 card. (especially after it stopped working).


What I have found is I dont really need to record terrestrial channels - I only use the svideo-in of the Wintv card to record/watch shows from my Telewest cable, because my terrestrial reception is bad.

So, my pvr-350 has gone caput, BUT wait - I still have my Sigma X-card. And it has Svideo-in.

Can i install that instead, and still record shows from my cable box, and play then back? Plus of course get the bonus of smooth DIVX playback? :-)

Sub - do you do a 'no-TV card' option, ie S-video in only? I like the PVR-350, but the darn thing get so hot, I cant achieve silence nirvana...


cheers,

[sub]

The XCard doesnt have an SVideo-in.

If you want to watch tv or record any video you still have to have a card on supported list. Even if you're not using the tuner on the PVR card (like a lot of people here), it still needs to have the onboard MPEG2 encoder hardware etc. Not needing to use an on-board tuner is not the same as not needing a card...

[slayer]

ahh, yes, TV-OUT and VGA-IN (not TV-IN, booo!) A case of I 'wanted to see what I saw'. Happens to me late at night when tinkering!

To finish off this thread, is there a more efficient card than the PVR-350? In terms of heat generation? I found the only reason I needed a chassis fan was for the the Wintv card...

cheers,

[SimonP]

What I have found is I dont really need to record terrestrial channels - I only use the svideo-in of the Wintv card to record/watch shows from my Telewest cable, because my terrestrial reception is bad.

I'm curious as to how you got an S-Video signal out of the Telewest box. As I understood it they only output RGB and Composite so do you use an RGB to S-Video adaptor? In which case, which one?

Regarding your problem, I'd say get a Hauppauge 150 to replace your 350 if you've been happy with it and you don't use the radio? You might pick up a 150 or 250 on Ebay quite cheaply, otherwise I found Amazon offered the best price for a 250 last year.

Simon. (Using pretty much the same hardware as you)