Hauppauge pvr250mce $95 shipped

[Shyatic]

I use the USB-UIRT and it works perfectly. Thumbs up from me

I'm waiting for ATI to put out their next Remote Wonder that has the emitter function built into it Kickass!

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: robisc
I posted this at HTPCNews but wanted to see what you guys thought, I just got the Hauupauge 250 MCE with Sage TV package and have it installed, I bought the OEM version and went to download the drivers but which ones do I need and in what order do they need to be installed, when I try and run Win TV or Sage the video starts for just a short moment then freezes or the program locks up, what could be the issue? I am not familiar with these cards.

I am using the 250MCE as one of my tuner cards in my Sage TV box. I am using this driver from SHSPVR with this card and it is working great.

There seems to be a newer version of the driver out there on SHSPVR but I haven't tried it, since the above driver is working great for me.

See this page on SHSPVR site to get all the drivers you need.

You also want to make sure that you have a software MPEG2 decoder installed. I recommend using the one from Hauppuge. Also, installing WinDVD or PowerDVD (or any software DVD player for that matter) will install a MPEG2 decoder which Sage will then be able to use.

Finally, make sure in Sage video setting, that you are using overlay and not VMR9.

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: uwannawhat
I tried the latest build & no go.

See, that is the problem with SnapStream ... they are notorious for releasing half baked stuff on the hand of users. BeyondTV is a good product ... SnapStream's quality control is not

I'm still searching for a copy of XP Media Center Edition. I'm not gonna pay a few hundred for it though.

Just out of curiosity, why do you want WinXP Media Center so bad ? I have used MCE, BTV and SageTV and I am not sure I want to go back to MCE ... especially after using SageTV v2.

 

[Shyatic]

Sage is great... needs work, but it's great.

 

[corinthos]

not sure if this is still the case, but i read somewhere that sage is the only one that supports multiple tuners...

 

[pcalchemy]

Originally posted by: Scribe
Sage is great... needs work, but it's great.

That might have been more the case with SageTV 1.4, SageTV 2.0 has made great strides especially in the UI areas. SageTV is currently at 2.0.18 RC3, so I'd expect it to go into production soon.

 

[pcalchemy]

Originally posted by: corinthos
not sure if this is still the case, but i read somewhere that sage is the only one that supports multiple tuners...

On Windows, SageTV is currently the only commercial PVR application supporting multiple tuners, on Linux MythTV (ivtv driver) supports multiple tuners.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: psxjunky

Originally posted by: uwannawhat
I tried the latest build & no go.

See, that is the problem with SnapStream ... they are notorious for releasing half baked stuff on the hand of users. BeyondTV is a good product ... SnapStream's quality control is not

I'm still searching for a copy of XP Media Center Edition. I'm not gonna pay a few hundred for it though.

Just out of curiosity, why do you want WinXP Media Center so bad ? I have used MCE, BTV and SageTV and I am not sure I want to go back to MCE ... especially after using SageTV v2.

Must be your computers.

I have now installed the Roslyn card and beyond TV Three times.

1) One with a nice running system(installed BTV 3.4.4
2)I went back to 3.4.2 for DIvx support and it was fine. It didn't see mto use the hardware encoding however.
3) Do to unrelated problems I had to reformat, and installed the card wit hthe included drivers and BTV 3.4.4

It has recorded for two days without a hitch

 

[dr150]

Is the Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP Expert Edition any good?

This card retails for $60 at Fry's and has FM radio to boot.

Seems like an unbeatable option to me.

To the folks in-the-know.......What DIFFERENCE would you expect than with the PVR250mce???????...........

 

[Granamere]

To dr150,

I am not the expert here by any means but from my limited knowledge the big difference would be hardware encoding. The PVR250mce has it the Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP does not. There is a lot of good information in this post so if you have not you might want to go through it. Also you might want to state what your end goal is. Just one card in an old computer to be your PVR for your TV or just something to play with or what.

Granamere

 

[psxjunky]

dr150: Please read this entire thread ... this has been discussed in detail. But in short, yes, Granamere is absolutely right. The big difference between the TV2000XP and PVR250 is that the later has hardware encoding, which results in much lower CPU usage, better picture quality and perfect audio-video sync. The PVR250 (or Roslyn, if you have the right software to use it with) for a few more $$$ is most definitely worth it, especially if you want to do regular serious TV recording or video capture and do not have a very high end machine.

 

[psxjunky]

UPDATE !! SageTV 2.0 has been officially released today. The official price of SageTV 2.0 has gone up to $79.95 from the $59.95 price of 1.4, but PCAlchemy is is still offering a great discount on the SageTV ($58.95) as well as SageTV Bundle prices ... even more reason to buy from them now.

(and oh, just a reminder that I still don't work for PCAlchemy )

Note that any existing v1.4 users will STILL get SageTV 2.0 for FREE ! So if you bought SageTV for under 50 bucks from PCAlchemy till yesterday, you got an awesome deal ... since you basically got a $30 discount on this great piece of software !

Finally, the SageTV trial version has also been upgraded to v2.0 as predicted. Also the clock on the trial has been reset, so even if you tried v1.4 earlier, you can still try v2.0 for another 15 days.

Get your SageTV 2.0 trial here

 

[psxjunky]

Oh, forgot to mention. Sage now has a official "Bundle" with the Roslyn Blackbird card too. In fact, they also have a "Multi Tuner Bundle" with two Blackbirds.

Look Here at SageTV Store

SageTV 2.0 + 1 Blackbird = $149.95

SageTV 2.0 + 2 Blackbirds = $229.95

Can I go ahead and make a bold guess that PCAlchemy will sell similar Blackbird bundles at a discount from the above prices ... ( <hint><hint> if PCAlchemy guys are listening )

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: psxjunky

Originally posted by: uwannawhat
I tried the latest build &amp; no go.

See, that is the problem with SnapStream ... they are notorious for releasing half baked stuff on the hand of users. BeyondTV is a good product ... SnapStream's quality control is not

I'm still searching for a copy of XP Media Center Edition. I'm not gonna pay a few hundred for it though.

Just out of curiosity, why do you want WinXP Media Center so bad ? I have used MCE, BTV and SageTV and I am not sure I want to go back to MCE ... especially after using SageTV v2.

Must be your computers.

I have now installed the Roslyn card and beyond TV Three times.

1) One with a nice running system(installed BTV 3.4.4
2)I went back to 3.4.2 for DIvx support and it was fine. It didn't see mto use the hardware encoding however.
3) Do to unrelated problems I had to reformat, and installed the card wit hthe included drivers and BTV 3.4.4

It has recorded for two days without a hitch

Aye, when it does work, it works beautifully; when it doesn't work, it's hell.

 

[Jeraden]

I noticed the sage store has separate bundles now for Blackbird and non-blackbird cards. There are too many posts in this thread and I'm confused, so I'll just ask for a quick summary. Whats the difference between the 2 cards. They are charging $20 more for the non-blackbird. Is that a better card to get?

 

[ViRGE]

If you intend to use your card with anything besides Sage, you want the non-Blackbird card.

 

[commOdog]

blackbird works with beyond tv and Microsoft XP Media Center as well, although it is new and they are still working the bugs out of the drivers.

Go here for Board Identifying and differences:
http://www.shspvr.com/pvr_model.html

"Blackbird" is a new Hardware MPEG2 encoding TV capture
card which is base on the reference design by Conexant.
OEM Boxed Hauppuage WinTV-PVR known only by it codename "Roslyn"
revision 1 Conexant CX23880/CX23416 chip"

 

[RadioUdotCom]

Whats up Commo...long time since I've seen you around.

Glad to see your around and not in the sandbox

MM

 

[dr150]

I have the Leadtek WinTv 2000 XP Expert card. The video I recorded with TV or VCR using this card stutters while gaming at the same time while encoding.


Could someone please educate me whether a hardare based drive like the Hauppage will eliminate such stuttering. Or is video encoding such a resource intensive task that regardless of whether it's a software (Leadtek) or hardware (Hauppage) based card, that I have no real options but NOT to game while encoding.


BTW, my computer is a 2.7 Athlon with 1 gig of RAM and a fast video card. My encoding takes place on a separate IDE channel, btw......

 

[psxjunky]

dr150: Software encoder cards put a very high load on the CPU when encoding video, leaving little CPU bandwidth for anything else. When you are gaming at the same time as video encoding, both processes are competiting with each other for a prime chunk of CPU time, and neither one is getting enough. This is what is causing the errorneous video encoding with stutters, and I am guessing your game suffers some slowness too.

When using a hardware encoder based card (like the 250/350/Roslyn), the bulk of the video encoding related processing is done by the hardware encoder, leaving the CPU mostly free for everything else. I have noticed very little load on the CPU when recording with the 250 cards. I have also successfully encoded DivX (which is an extremely CPU intensive task, kinda like gaming) while recording using the 250, and both has worked perfectly.

So I am almost positive that using a hardware encoder based card will solve your problem of stuttering ... especially since you have a pretty beefy machine.

 

[dr150]

Originally posted by: psxjunky

Originally posted by: dr150
Do these cards have an INFARED BLASTER?

Without the blaster, there's no way to have the PVR change channels on the cable box, which is needed to descramble pay TV channels like HBO, etc.

First off, note the difference between an IR Blaster and an IR Receiver. A blaster is one that Sends IR signal to external boxes like Cable boxes, Satellite receivers etc. An IR receiver Receives IR input from a remote control and inturn sends commands to the PC (NOT to external boxes directly) to do stuff (increase/decrease volume, traverse between menus etc.)

None of the Hauppauge cards have any IR Blaster support. The retail WinTV 250 and 350 cards support IR Receivers and come bundled with a UR sensor to be used as a receiver.

None of the Hauppauge WinTV MCE cards (either Roslyn -OR- Amity) have the IR receiver support. This feature is ONLY available on the retail 250 and 350 (not even the retail 250MCE).

However that doesn't mean that you can't use an external IR blaster. The two popular ones are USB-UIRT and Actisys IR-200L. I recommend the USB-UIRT since it is much better than the Actisys IR-200L and it can work as both IR receiver AND blaster at the same time.

I'm going to buy the Hauppauge 350 card. Is any software packages recommended for watching with a digital cable receiver? Is the stock software good enough for programming, or is it worth upgrading to Sage or some other software?

Please advise.........

 

[psxjunky]

I'm going to buy the Hauppauge 350 card. Is any software packages recommended for watching with a digital cable receiver? Is the stock software good enough for programming, or is it worth upgrading to Sage or some other software?

Please advise.........

This has already been discussed and beaten to death ... so I am not repeating the same arguments here. The short answer is that the WinTV software that is included with the Hauppauge cards is okay for occasional TV viewing, but for any serious TV Viewing and Recording, a "real" PVR software like SageTV, BeyondTV, MythTV etc. will give you *much* better service.

SageTV is one of the few apps around that will use the hardware decoder on-board the 350, so you will get superior output when using the S-Video connection on the 350. Not sure which other apps support this.

There are some issues with getting the OSD thru the 350 S-Video though. I don't remember the details, and they may have already been fixed ... but just a heads up.

 

[RossMAN]

dr150 - Why are you buying the PVR-350? I think one of the PVR-250 bundles with Sage TV or Beyond TV is a far better value. It's just as powerful.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Is it possible to run these MCE cards on any OS other than MCE which is impossible to own legally.

 

[dr150]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
dr150 - Why are you buying the PVR-350? I think one of the PVR-250 bundles with Sage TV or Beyond TV is a far better value. It's just as powerful.

Well, b.c the 350 has support for infared blaster plus FM radio and remote. All features that I value.

Am I still making the right decision based on features or will another card do it for me?........

How about software? Do I need any type of software like Sage , etc?........