List of TV tuner with h/w mpeg2?

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Oct_7

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Hi,

Can someone list all the tv tuner products that come with h/w mpeg2 encoder/decoder?

and another question, my computer runs on athlon xp 1600, and 256 DDR, is it powerful enough to record tv programs using mpeg2 s/w compression and do some other things (browsing, etc.)?

Thanks alot

Regards,

[] [_] [--
 
Hauppauge's PVR cards have MPEG2 hardware compression. I've heard of two brands, but Hauppauge is the only one I remember. If you go to their site, it will be listed in the features for the cards that have it.

XP1600+ can probably do web browsing and other light task while recording in software mode.

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Also the Nvidia (personal cinema?) line of graphics cards has hardware encoder/decoder (I think [maybe just decoder]) as that's what let's them be Media PC compliant. They say 'real-time' encoding. <A HREF="http://www.slcentral.com/reviews/hardware/video/visiontek/xtasy5564/" target="_new">HERE's</A> a link to Visontek's discription.

There's also the Matrox and other Proffesional cards, but they cost about as much as a set-top DVD recorder ($500+)

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red> :tongue: GA to SK
 
Hi,

Thanks for the info. Just another question, is a hardware decoder important? Anyone can give opinion about pixelview video maker?

Thanks alot

Regards,

[] [_] [--
 
I'm also curious as to whether a hardware decoder is all that important. I'm looking at either a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350 or 250, the big difference is the 350 has a hardware decoder. Is it worth the extra $50?

I would assume that the hw decoder would be most useful for watching saved clips while doing other CPU intensive tasks. Is this correct?

This is a little off topic but does anyone have any experience with titantv.com?
 
Hardware decoder is no big stuff...almost every card has that. The big thing to get is the hardware encoder. That will encode analog to MPEG in real time. THat is mucho dinero. If you want to encode stuff while you do other things on your computer, this is the only way to go. Rendering video is mucho CPU intensive, and the encoder takes that task. If you try to do both, you will get dropped frames.

Get your own sig!!! :tongue:
 
dunno. Hardware decoders are not included in most new entry level capture/tv cards I've seen (as stated pvr 350 has one) and the reson is most modern computers can do software decoding with no proplems at all. The original poster should have no problem with his rig.

Also the encoder on the pvr 250 will not work when recording TV programs. Only works thru the video inputs.
 
Hardware ENCODERS are important for recording video. Decoders are used for displaying video. Encoding is much harder than decoding, so that hardware encoders are far more valuable.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
I don't know of ANY input device that uses a hardware decoder, why would you need to decode digital video before sending the analog signal to the PC, simply to be encoded again?

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
Hehe, "real time" encoding...but you need to read the technical details on some hidden document to find out the truth: Real Time encoding using a minimum 1GHz PIII processor to do any encoding at 640x480 or above without lost frames, assuming that you're not multitasking since your CPU usage will shoot up to 100%.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
LOL, yeah it's hardware-assisted. Whereas cards like the MATROX caputre cards are REAL real-time encoder cards, but alo cost ALOT more ~$500 to start. Is still prefer separate cards, but for the all-in-one solution I'm not a fan of NV despite their 'hardware' features. There's just something about the fit and finish of the AIW (which is why I've owned 2 [rage128/8500DV])

And people the ONLY thing that the hardware encoder/decoder is go for is if you want to run MEDIAPC version of windows, and what that's good for is VERY limited, and definitely not any better than 3rd party additions to Win98SE/2K/XP.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com" target="_new"><font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK :evil:
 
If you want to take the load off the CPU for inputting video, you need a hardware encoder. OEM PC's are often so lame that they can't do it smoothly in software, even if that's the only task running. Which is why MS went with their requirement.

As for the ATI cards, those are hardware assisted, the card handles over half the load, and this is the main reason ATI was upset over Microsoft's exclusion of their product from the compatability list for Media PC.

Hardware encoders are expensive, look at the Hauppauge cards, their hardware solutions (which they call PVR) cost $200 and up. But if you need to multitask, it's worth it, because your CPU performance will be far better.

And Pinacle offers that USB 2.0 external device with hardware encoding, and if you think about it, even USB 2.0 would be a little slow if it wasn't for hardware encoding.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
Actually what I've read is that the reason that they insist on hardware encoding/decoding is not so much resources as 'rights management' With the ATI's it requires additional software, and thus it can be bypassed. MS wants hardware because it's harder to bipass things like Macrovision (but not impossible by a long shot). I remembe he big stink it made in some of my video editing mags at the Univ. As it basically meant MS was taking sides on te issue, and it did turn out to be the case, there are other 'rights management' programs MS is adopting/changing.
That's what I read was the reason.
It would make sense that you'd want hardware as to make it easier and really show of a MediaPC, however I hadn't heard that (not that it doesn't mean that it ain't so, just hadn't heard it so I may be out of the loop).

In the end really there is Little NEED for MS Media Center Edition, an article by Anand in this month's CPU gives high praise to ATI's MMC a a good all-around suite. The two things he mentioned as lacking vs. the MCE was a specific start page and that th Guide+ wasn't instegrated on the main MMC interface (it has it's own). I would recommend reading it if you can get your hands on the AUG. issue of CPU.

In any case I wouldn't worry about it in the long run, most systems being buiult for MEdia Center applications can handle some of the work. It just means no multi-tasking. However a P4 3.06ghz HT with over 1 gb of ram should have no trouble with he basic task of encoding. IT will stil of course be noticeably slower than a PC which can off-load this task to a stand-alone card.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com" target="_new"><font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK :evil:
 
So if I can't use the hardware encoder on the Happauge 250 with the coax in, what is your recommendation for a card that will tune and has h/w encoding?

I want a card that I just plug a cable stright from the wall into my pc and be able to watch TV on my monitor and use PVR functionality with hardware encoding.
 
where does it say that the pvr 250 can't encode from the coax? all the stuff on their page (http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr250_datasheet.htm) suggests otherwise.
 
I haven't heard anything like that. In fact, the rest of the card should be treating the tuner as just another analog video input, the same as the composite input but on a different channel, and using the hardware encoder the same way!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
I can't say for sure, but I haven't seen any evidence that would lead me to such a conclusion as he made.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
Tomlow that's not true. I own a PVR-250 and I record TV with hardware encoding. What is more... the PVR-250 card ONLY works with hardware encoding, it doesn't support YUV video like standard TV tuners.
To make it more clear, TV in and Video in works ONLY with hardware encoding. This means that you must decode the video after it was encoded to watch it in your computer. You can't play with your playstation or Nintendo64, etc because of the delays (encoding/decoding takes some time). Hauppauge guys are working to support YUV live video through PVRs cards. It works, I could enable it in my machine, but there's much work to do with that yet.

Good Luck
 
Please excuse my ignorance. But if the PVR250 saves the stream on the disk as MPEG2, who needs any hardware after that - I should be able to view it with any windows media player on any machine (if I have the file) - no?

No encoder needed, after it is streamed to disk - why is an encoder/decoder required?
 
That's why I bought a PVR-250. I really don't need a mpeg decoder. Maybe... there is people that need a decoder because they have slow computer. The PVR-350 is the card for them.
 
Your question: If it saves the stream to disk, why do you need an encoder? The answer: It saves an MPEG2 stream to the disk, that's WHY you want the encoder.

You have an input of ANALOG video, ANALOG video CANNOT be saved to disk. It has to convert that input to data (digital format) before it can stream it to the disk. Now, SOMETHING has to convert the stream from analog to digital, either it's going to be the CPU or the Hardware MPEG2 encoder chip. The CPU isn't really up to the task at high resolutions or when you're multitasking, so there's your reason for the hardware encoder.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
i am going to be building a new comp...and i have spec'd a Compro PCI TV Tuner Card VideoMate TV Gold Plus...is this a good card or is it junk...i am totally out of the loop on tv tuners and such..
 
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