The HDTV is enroute... now what?

[Dubya]

So here's the deal... I have a 42" Panasonic HDTV enroute, LAAAAAA!!!! And my question is... what kinda capture card will I need to be able to still use GBPVR in all it's glory? Right now I'm rockin a PVR-250 on a 27" Sony Vega. Also, just for reference I live in California.

Anyone?

Dubya

[-stattik-]

The 250 will work fine with a HDTV. You'll just watch the NTSC recordings. I assume you'll want to record HDTV streams. Get one of the DVICO Fusion cards, they work well with GBPVR. This assumes hat you'll be getting your HDTV signals from an antenna.

[Dubya]

Thanks Stattik! Do you know if the Dvico card would work with a local cable provider? ie.) Comcast HD?

[jquinlan]

Thanks Stattik! Do you know if the Dvico card would work with a local cable provider? ie.) Comcast HD?

At this time no consumer product can support the tuning of cable HD due to encryption. "Cable Cards" have this capability but only for TV's that have a slot for this technology, No PC drivers exist and if they have it their way none will. Microsoft is trying to fight them on this issue, but it will only be for Media Center PC's if they get it.
You can always use the HD output of the STB and capture it through a HD card, that is the only thing I can think of. Anybody else?

[daphatty]

jquinlan is correct, you will not be able to do Encrypted QAM (a.k.a. all of the good channels) directly on your PC. The Fusion 5 Video App can (finally) detect unencrypted QAM Cable channels but your mileage will vary AND you will be forced to use their app. QAM functionality is not a part of the BDA driver spec which GBPVR uses. Therefore, you will be limited to OTA HD only regardless of the card.

If you do decide to go with the Fusion 5 card there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, I recommend the F5 Lite. The Gold card has features that you don't really need (ugly remote control) and GBPVR doesn't support anyway (analog tuning). The USB version seems to be EXTREMELY picky and I'm not even sure it works with GBPVR. AVSForum users have been complaining alot about the F5 USB.

Second, make sure your HTPC is powerful enough to handle the new card. This includes your CPU strength, amount of RAM, and Hard Disk space. HDTV recordings take twice as much disk space and horsepower to put to disk.

Lastly, and this is based off my personal experience, you will want to build your HTPC from scratch to ensure the Fusion 5 is "King" of your system. The F5 CANNOT share an IRQ with any other device and the easiest way to make that happen is to rebuild your system and make the F5 THEFIRST add-on card that is installed.

I'll let you digest that for a bit.

[Dubya]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I think hold off on the HD - GBPVR for the time being and see how things evolve. Ideally I'd like to get a HD tuner / capture card that would record directly to Mpeg4 instead of it's ugly cousin Mpeg2 but it sounds like this is quite a ways off so I'll wait and see.

Thanks again,

Dubya