which tv tuner card is better

[realibrad]

so im looking at getting either this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116628


or this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815294001

i have xp media center and both say the support it.
i have a p4 3.06ghz, 2gig of ram and x1550pro 256mb video card (N82E16814103031).


so it looks like this has been viewed 125 times and still no reply, dosent look good for me. now 137

 

[oserus]

Off hand, I would definitely recommend the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE. While both support MCE, the Hauppauge supports a much wider variety of third party applications.

 

[realibrad]

thank you very much. i was getting worried that nobody would reply. is there any others that you can recommend that i should look at. i see that that card is very large. what would you recommend?

 

[glupee]

from the research i've done i've always read hauppage to be the best in for tv-tuners and their 500 version is pretty top line.
So i guess i too would recommend that one.

 

[TeraMedia]

I have a quasi-predecessor to the 650, the HDTV Wonder. The analog SDTV tuner on that card far-outclassed the output quality coming from my Hauppauge 500. The 500 is basically two 150s stuck together, so it isn't even as good quality-wise as a 250. That said, the 500 has two tuners, which is nice.

It is possible that the video noise / quality problem I observed was partially due to the location of the card in the PC, and the lack of shielding. But you asked for feedback on the card and that's what I've observed. In particular, one tuner [edit]on the 500[/edit] appears to be noisier than the other [edit]on the same card[/edit].

If you are building a new computer, you might consider a PCIe-X1 card so that you can take advantage of that kind of slot. Also check the interrupt config of your Mobo, b.c. you'll want to avoid interrupt contention with other cards, sound, and ethernet.

 

[col-p-todd]

as tera said the ati card has a better icture qualitie and the Hauppage has a dual tuner. I went with the 500 because the don't sell the 650 in europe. But having dual tuners is really nice recording 2 programs at the same time. What I do alot. so id you have the money to burn get 2 650. and if not get a 500.

 

[aevm]

I have a Hauppauge PVR-150 which works perfectly on my XP Media Center. I also have a Theater 650 which I couldn't get to work because of crappy software.

 

[realibrad]

right now my computer isint online but will be in about a month, so i guess i could take out the ethernet card. i kinda have to stick with the pci interface because my mobo dosent have agp or pci-e. this computer i just want as a media center pc, im going to build one from the ground up in about a year anyway. ill try and keep the pc away from other electro. i have. the cables i hae right now arent organized but i could always get some sheilding for them, or do you think it might be worth it to go external? is there a card that has two tuners that is better. i really want to get one with 2, but if i have to then i could just split the connection to my tv and feed the other to the pc and use a signal amp.

 

[shortyS1]

If you have OTA HD reception where you live I would get the ATI 650. The only bad thing is the 650 is a hybrid tuner so you can't use analog and digital concurrently.

 

[TMSter]

I am thinking about getting this one, but i never owned one so don't know how it is. Reviews seem good, well decent.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Hauppauge-WinTV-HVR-1600-1178/sem/rpsm/oid/168467/catOid/-13043/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

 

[tomwaddle]

Did you see the note at the bottom for that card?

Note: ATSC digital TV is NOT digital cable TV or digital satellite TV. The WinTV-HVR-1600 cannot receive digital cable TV or digital satellite TV.

 

[mark204]

can the 500 handle digital cable or sat?

 

[tomwaddle]

yeah but you can only hook up one set top box to it.

 

[Belinda]

I've got two different Hauppauge tv cards (both internal cards, i've not tried the external ones). Great cards but the software is totally horrid.

 

[tomwaddle]

I've never used the software. I just use MCE

 

[the_vorlon]

The picture quality of the 650 is better in my opinion, especially or bad quality and/or noisy signals.

The 500 has dual tuners which is nice, if you actuallyneed that feature. I beliove the ATI also uses less system resources as it does the mpeg compression onboard as opposed to offloading it to the CPU (I may be wrong on that, but I seem to remember that "fact" from someplace)

 

[wilbernot]

Hola!

I'm still trying to decide which tv tuner, and video combination to go with. My end goal is to be able to
#1 - capture 2 t.v. channels at once(possibly hd channels but i don't even have hd at home yet), using ChrisTV to record, and Webshifter to schedule keyword recordings. But end files I want to be XVID compressed avi's, not mpegs.

#2 - I'd definitely want to be able to export or play to an HD projector, mainly dvd's i'd watch, or some video games, and some regular analog tv most likely.

So on the table from what's been said so far we have the ATI 650 capture card, or the hauppage WInTV-500. Then another video card is needed for output(I just have an old ATI 9800 pro so I guess I'll need a new one)


I just saw the All-In-Wonder X1900 though, and it looks pretty sweet. That'd be capture, and output in one. I need a new motherboard to support PCI express, but that's better than either the ati 650, or the hauppage one's anyway, right? What should I get? Thanks for the help!

 

[VChuck]

Ahh, PCalchemy has the Nvidia dual tv for $160.I might get one. which is much better solution than that Happauge PVR 500(did they Samsung tuner issues fixed by the way?)
for HD I've heard a lot if good things about HD homerun(external box)
As far as video cards are concerned you know Nvidia has dropped support for the H.264 decoding on their 6600-7000 series agp cards right?(Thanks Nvidia<Mf******!) :x

I would wait for ATI's 2400-2600,which should decode B.Ray and HD DVD and VC-1 without barely utilizing the cpu so even a single core P-4 3.0 and AMD equivalent can be utilized for it.Pretty amazing DAAMIT! I 'll believe it when there are more benchmarks available,But it looks promising woot!

 

[nvalhalla]

well, I don't know how well it compares to the 2 you listed, but I just bought this one to test out in an HTPC.

TwinHan ATSC VP3250

I hooked a pair of rabbit ears up to it and got a local channel (ABC12) so I know it works in Vista, but I can't vouch for it yet as I haven't had the time to hook it up to my roof antenna and compare it to my set-top box. I bought it for $40 shipped.

 

[truromeo4juliet]

i had the hauppuage 150 and the ATi 550... the 550 surpasses the 150 in quality, and the 500 according to an earlier post is like 2 x 150's on a board... the 650 is supposed to surpass the 550 in quality, so...

hauppuage 150 < hauppuage 500 < ATi 550 < ATi 650

now... which do you want more? dual-tuner's in a single PCI-slot, or better quality?? you can always add a tuner later... can you add quality? no...

 

[bobbknight]

I never bought into the windows mce thing.
But I did want to watch and record tv on my computer.
So I got at the time the best card that gives the best tv picture that was around. The Compro VideoMate TV Gold Plus, it has worked for 6 years now without a problem.

As I also wanted to receive HDTV I bought an ATI HDTV Wonder, it works but was troublesome to install the software and drivers, and the SDTV is poor at best.

Though Hauppuage is the biggest name it the US, I like the picture quality from the older Compro.

I have heard good things about the Hauppuage 250, though I have not seen it side by side to compare it with my Compro.

As I have a new computer setup, I am looking at the Hauppuage

WinTV-HVR-1800 PCI-e when it shows up at stores, I just wish to see the video quality of both the HD and SD outputs.

I was looking to get a newer Compro tuner card, but it looks like Compro does not have current US retail outlets.

Right now we do not have a good digital satellite or cable tv card for use in the US.
And the networks are doing everything they can to keep us from having anything that we would find useful.

If I had to buy something right now, I would look for the cheapest card that I could find that had a Phillips or Conexant.

AverMedia seems to have a good product lineup too.

 

[mark204]

I've read through Hauppauge's site and there is no mention which tuner, if not a new one, they're using for analog tv on the 1600?

One other question comes to mind with the note that was mentioned earlier:"Note: ATSC digital TV is NOT digital cable TV or digital satellite TV. The WinTV-HVR-1600 cannot receive digital cable TV or digital satellite TV."

When I plug my basic cable directly into my hdtv and search for channels, it breaks them down into analog and digital, which it finds and displays both. Are these digital channels covered under the disclaimer above?

 

[nvalhalla]

If it displays the channels, they are QAM, unencrypted. No, I think the disclaimer is for encrypted digital and satellite, although I'm not positive. can anyone else confirm?