Originally posted by: dailyfreestuff
how did you get mce? buy a system with it? or off of BT or something?
You can only buy it preinstalled on a system.
Originally posted by: dailyfreestuff
how did you get mce? buy a system with it? or off of BT or something?
Originally posted by: Dantzig
Originally posted by: dailyfreestuff
how did you get mce? buy a system with it? or off of BT or something?
You can only buy it preinstalled on a system.
Originally posted by: huesmann
Originally posted by: Dantzig
Originally posted by: dailyfreestuff
how did you get mce? buy a system with it? or off of BT or something?
You can only buy it preinstalled on a system.
Originally posted by: SingralliSeen
Pardon the newbie question. But many here seem to hark about this being the cheapest MPEG2 hardware card. My friend got an AverMedia DVD EZMaker (PCI) for $19 AR and it can do a decent 720x480 without dropping frames. I had some driver issues with it (Windows 2000 )but on Windows XP, it works like a song. Of course, no TV and no remote but then I don't get a kick out of watching TV on my 17" screen.
Originally posted by: SingralliSeen
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These cards do hardware MPEG2 encoding, something no cheap card can offer. The advantage of doing MPEG2 encoding in hardware is it relieves the CPU from having to do it, and depending on what CPU you are using can consume 100% of the CPU making the computer worthless to do anything else. With these cards the CPU usage is usually around 5% regardless of what CPU you are using.
Additionally, the quality of video on these cards is remarkably better than most every other TV tuner card out there.
I know it's not as cheap as what z-buy.com WAS selling them for (they are out of stock), but you can still get them at http://www.pcalchemy.com for $99.
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Agreed. But what I notice from these forums is most of us out here these days have a super 2+ GHz /3+ GHz processor to do the job. If we can't get the processor to do something in this case, for what higher purpose are we saving it for? No wonder they have hiked the price in the past few days.
Originally posted by: gmessner
Because even with the fast CPUs it is a problem. If you want to record one channel and watch something previously recorded, you're not going to do it unless your TV tuner provides MPEG2 encoding, I can guaranty that. Also, no matter how fast the CPU, you'll invariably get some video stutter with software based MPEG2 encoding. Plus, the encoded video is just plain better.
Many of us like myself, have multiple TV tuners in my HTPC box, I can actually record 3 channels and watch one live at the same time, or record 3 channels and watch a previous recording at the same time, all with great quality. Now, it may seem that I watch a lot of TV, I really watch less than my pre-HTPC days, I can now watch a 1 hour show in 35 minutes, and there is no fighting between my kids on what we are going to watch, since they all get to watch exactly what they want.
Greg
http://www.pcalchemy.com
Originally posted by: TerryMathews
Originally posted by: gmessner
Because even with the fast CPUs it is a problem. If you want to record one channel and watch something previously recorded, you're not going to do it unless your TV tuner provides MPEG2 encoding, I can guaranty that. Also, no matter how fast the CPU, you'll invariably get some video stutter with software based MPEG2 encoding. Plus, the encoded video is just plain better.
Many of us like myself, have multiple TV tuners in my HTPC box, I can actually record 3 channels and watch one live at the same time, or record 3 channels and watch a previous recording at the same time, all with great quality. Now, it may seem that I watch a lot of TV, I really watch less than my pre-HTPC days, I can now watch a 1 hour show in 35 minutes, and there is no fighting between my kids on what we are going to watch, since they all get to watch exactly what they want.
Greg
What PVR software are you using?
Originally posted by: SilverThief
damn I am having nothing but problems with this card. I got it setup last night, complete with updated drivers and Sage TV and it worked fine then. Now this morning, I did a complete reinstall of XP (had been planning on doing it today), reinstalled the drivers, updated them and now I get nothing. In Sage TV I get this error:
There was an error with MPEG video II setup
Failed connecting video stream to the overlay mixer
ErrCode=0x80040217
Not sure what is going on, but I defintely need help.
Originally posted by: c627627
1. What's a good site/forum that talks about video capture cards?
2. What's the difference in recording quality between this card and some of those $300 'digital tuner' cards?
I'll get one of these when the price goes back down to $80. I just don't like the idea of paying $20 more than what most people paid.
Originally posted by: agent2099
I'll get one of these when the price goes back down to $80. I just don't like the idea of paying $20 more than what most people paid.