Which one is better...

[TrueTenacity]

I'm looking to get a TV capture card to get a bit of PVR setup on my PC, and i'm at a crossroads between two cards...

Leadtek TV2000 Expert or Leadtek PVR2000

Which one would be the better choice?

 

[Bruxbox]

It appears that the PVR2000 has an hardware MPEG encoder, which means video encoding is done on the PVR2000 itself instead of by the CPU. Overall system performance is better.

I'm not familiar with either model to say that this is the key difference.

I'd recommend downloading the manual for each model, and verify my observation. If it is true that the PVR2000 does hardware encoding and the TV2000 does not, get the PVR2000.

 

[Crashman]

Have you considered the various cards that use ATI's Theater 550 chip?

 

[TrueTenacity]

Yeah, the PVR has a hardware encoder and i'm interested in getting it...

I haven't really looked at the ATi cards, thing geing i already have a nVidia 3D card solution and i would like to add tv capture & pvr to it...

so if there's an ATi capture / encoder card sure, but otherwise an add-on card will do...

 

[Crashman]

OMG, so basically what you're telling me is that you're completely clueless, you haven't done any review searches whatsoever?

OK, the TV-Wonder Elite is the prime TV tuner card to this day. It was released around 2 years ago, with advanced features such as 3D comb filters and so forth. And yes, it has hardware encoding. BTW, it works with nVidia graphics cards, and is PCI.

Sapphire and Power Color have exact clones of the TV-Wonder Elite, with the exact same functionality. The package differences are things like the remote, or the software, or both. These clones are much cheaper, and available in both PCI and PCI-Express x1 interfaces.

Many review sites use the TV-Wonder Elite (or a clone of it) as the standard by which other cards are compared.

I prefer to use mine with ATI MultiMedia Center, rather than the included software.

 

[TrueTenacity]

I wouldn't say clueless, but live in SA where pc tech is a little harder to come by than 5 minutes round the block...

but yeah, shot for the tip, checking it out now...

 

[TrueTenacity]

Now that is an AWESOME card...

But as per usual, the stores in SA don't even know what the card is, nevermind having one... :-(

I love this country.... NOT!

 

[Scooter41]

OK, the TV-Wonder Elite is the prime TV tuner card to this day. It was released around 2 years ago, with advanced features such as 3D comb filters and so forth. And yes, it has hardware encoding. BTW, it works with nVidia graphics cards, and is PCI.

Question for you... I had an HDTV Wonder with the Remote and couldn't get it to work.

Here's what I tried to get it installed.

1. Removed all nVidia drivers.
2. Used DriverCleaner Pro in safe mode to completely remove them.
3. Shut down the computer and put the ATI card in.
4. Installed only the new drivers/software from ATI off their website.
5. Restarted and installed nVidia drivers.
6. Continually got message that HD mode was unavailable because Overlay wasn't compatible every time MMC was started.

That was the only combination that worked to get the TV to show up, and even then it was laggy and jumpy using ATI MMC. If I tried any other combination MMC just locked up and BSOD'd my box.

ATI tech support basically told me that it would be less of a headache if I just bought one of their graphics cards.

It's returned, but I was just wondering how I would actually get it to work if ATI's techs give up and tell you to buy one of their cards. I don't mean it as snotty as that probably sounds...

System Specs:
CPU: Opty 170
MB: MSI K8N Neo4 SLI Platinum
GFX: XFX 7900GT
RAM: Corsair 2GB DIMM Kit
OS: XP Pro SP2

 

[Crashman]

Nah, everyone was hyped about the HDTV Wonder, but it was nothing but problems. There's a rumor that it only worked properly with certain Intel chipsets.

 

[Scooter41]

I wouldn't doubt it. It was the most frustrating install of a peice of hardware I've done in 10 plus years. I'd rather install an ISA card and have to look for drivers online or install a game or software off ten 3.5" floppies than go through that again... 8O

 

[Bruxbox]

Nah, everyone was hyped about the HDTV Wonder, but it was nothing but problems. There's a rumor that it only worked properly with certain Intel chipsets.

There were some unfortunated folks who couldn't properly install the ATI HDTV Wonder, but the vast majority of owners were able to install the HDTV Wonder without issue and to have it delivering outstanding performance for a long time.

Don't believe me?

The HDTV Wonder has been on the market for three and half years. If it was such a bad product, it wouldn't have lasted so long.

 

[ARH]

the quality of PVR2000 is low and hardware encoding in this card couldn't compare with software encoding in the modern TV cards

 

[Scooter41]

Sorry for jumping back in so late with a reply.

BruxBox - are you saying I don't know how to install hardware or that the reply that the ATI techie gave me (that it the HDTV Wonder has problems with nVidia graphics cards and would not give true HD content output because of different implementations of overlays in the driver system) was wrong?

As far as saying it's the best, I've seen mixed reviews on the HDTV Wonder. The Theater 550 chip is where it's at with ATI's TV Tuners. I've heard the 650 is coming out and supports HDTV, but I haven't seen a product yet, just a bunch of pre-engineering test peice reviews that rank it slightly above the 550 with the nVidia tuner in second and the Hauppauge cards in a distant third with tons of bleeding issues with lines and color banding issues.

 

[Bruxbox]

Crashman

I was taking issue with your charge that the ATI HDTV Wonder was "nothing but problems". I suspect that you were merely exagerating. But, the HDTV Wonder is still a very popular product, and it will install just fine for most owners.

If the ATI techie told you that the HDTV Wonder has problems with Nvidia graphics cards, he or she was wrong. So, too, were the claims that it won't install on Intel boxes.

I have extensive experience with the ATI HDTV Wonder, and was one of the early owners. At first there were a few installation issues that were reported at various forums such as AVSForum.com. I participated in a couple of those forums, and helped other owners install the HDTV Wonder. I found that the alleged issues with Nvidia graphics cards and Intel chipsets were not true. We had too many Nvidia and Intel chipset users who installed the HDTV Wonder without issues to put those issues to rest.

I will note that HDTV Wonder installation problems usually arose when folks tried to install it in under-powered boxes. For instance, if you tried it in a Pentium III box or used a graphics card that did not support DirectX 8.0 or later, you had problems.

Anyway, the HDTV Wonder is a fine product, and should be among the first combo tuners that should be considered for folks using Windows XP.

In addition to the ATI HDTV Wonder, I have a Dvico Fusion 5 RT Gold, the Fusion 5 Lite, the Avermedia AverTVHD A180, a Powercolor Theater 550 Pro, and a OnAir HDTV GT, which is an USB combo tuner.