Compro Videomate Tv Gold Plus

[bill_bright]

Perfect timing on the excellent review of the Compro Videomate Tv Gold Plus TV Tuner card. I have a couple questions.

How does it compare with Hauppauge's offerings and for those, like me, that leave their systems on 24/7, how does that affect the scheduling feature? Can we assume there is no impact for NOT reconfiguring the power cable?

 

[twillux]

I've had the Compro Videomate TV Gold Plus for a few months now. In answer to the question of the power-up bypass feature: it will not hurt anything to leave it disconnected. Each program you schedule has a specific option to use the powerup feature if the computer is off when the program airs. For those of us who never turn our pc's off, the scheduler will always run regardless.


Thoughts on the card and software:

-The picture quality is excellent, but only if you use the Compro PVR software.

-Third-party programs' video quality suffers quite a bit. CyberLink's PowerVCR II has an excellent picture, but it does not work correctly with the card; the channel can not be changed. InterVideo's WinDVR works, but the quality is poor.

-The Compro PVR software is definitely average. The timeshifting works great, but the scheduler has problems, especially when using TitanTV tvpi schedule files.

-Very few third-party apps work... I've tried at least 10 of the leading PVR and Recording programs. Most did not function correctly. IuVCR Works well, after some configuration.

-From what I've experienced and read, the Compro is a very slow card when changing from channel to channel compared to others.

-Perhaps the biggest problem with the Compro card is that the Compro PVR software only captures in MPEG1 or 2 video and MPEG audio. With little third-party software support, it is near impossible to capture to uncompressed, DivX, MPEG4, etc etc, codecs. Who wants to capture to Mpeg2, decode to uncompressed, edit, then re-encode to MPEG4? Too time consuming, and more importantly, the quality suffers. I've resulted to capturing with IuVCR to uncompressed video and audio, but the picture quality is nowhere that of Compro PVR.


Anyway, hope this helps any of you interested in the card... I researched for days before I bought it, and after all is said I'd say I made a mistake. While it works well if you just want to watch and record TV shows for later viewing, it is a poor choice for those who want more out of a TV card.

For those with the money, I'd above all recommend the MyHD MDP-120 HDTV PCI TV Tuner card. I've seen what that card can do... wow =]
Here's the link:
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/mdp120.asp

Jason

 

[bill_bright]

Thanks for the input about the MyHD MDP-120 HDTV PCI TV Tuner card - when I first read you comment about it I was afraid it was going to be one of those $1200 overkill models (for me anyway) but under $400 with the DVI daughter card seems more reasonable (it is HDTV afterall). Too bad the DVI support has to some in the form of a daughter card, but I guess that makes purchasing options more flexible.

I did read this on the FAQ page:
Q. Does it work with HyperThreading systems?
A. MyHD has problems with Intel's i865 and i875 chipset motherboards which support HyperThreading. We are working on new drivers which is currently in beta-testing, although we do not currently have final release date for the next version.

And of course, my luck, I have a 875i board and P4 HT 3.06GHz.

 

[Berek]

I was interested in buying this product, however, I do not want to have to reincode the information to MPEG4. Is there a card out there that does this much or more, AND provides a really good encoder so you can directly throw the files onto a DVD or something?