With the hardware encoding that the WinTV-PVR-250 provides you are probably OK on a PII-400. You probably want to use a 7200 RPM drive for best results.
Well in the past day and a half, I've tried Snapstream's BeyondTV and SageTV in a Duron 950Mhz system with 512MB Ram, 120GB 7200RPM hd, USB-UIRT, PVR250.
- BTV was un-useable. The response to inputs was too slow and the 'live tv' had abouta 1 second delay in the audio relative to the video. It was frustrating to try and switch between screens once I did 'live tv' - nothing wanted to work. I did however like the user interface a bit better than Sage, seemed to have USB-UIRT more integrated, easier to setup.
- Sage 1.4 is much better responding - live TV doesn't show any delays between the audio and the video. USB-UIRT for a DISH receiver doesn't work very well - you need to get the .IR file from the forum to make it work right (auto learn didn't work reliably for me).
User interface isn't as good at BTV, though I hear 2.0 is night and day better - you just cannot get a trial version of 2.0 and I'm too chicken to plunk the $60 down when it has not yet been released.
Strangeness with Sage1.4
- I don't know why, but every show is being recorded right now. I recorded one show after starting to watch it live, and all subsequent shows are being recorded too.
- While recording a show AND watching it at the same time, every few minutes the TV would freeze, then 'pop' back to where it should be. Reviewing the recorded show showed the same thing in the same spots.
- I do not know how to 'record all shows' without also getting the repeats. Sage 1.4 doesn't seem to be able to be setup to record 'new reruns', and 'new shows'. You choose 'rerun' and you get them all including repeats. Choose 'new' and you won't get any of the reruns at all. Really hard to collect Seinfeld episodes from multiple stations.
Both Sage and BTV have a huge delay between what is shown the screen and what is really being put out by your satellite box. For example, if you change channels, you don't see the change for 5 - 10 seconds! Really frustrating when I was trying to figure out if my USB-UIRT was working.
Lastly, if you plan on watching live tv at the same time as you are recording, don't go with a slow setup! I think this is why I get occasionally 'freezes' of the video.
Dave