I am familiar with both ATI's cards and Dazzle's various offerings, but I am thinking about getting my brother a TV card that also can do video recording. I've read some things about Hauppage. Has anyone here used any of their cards? If so, any thoughts about the USB version? I am aware that my brother will need true USB 2.0 capability to make full use of any USB based video device. I am interested in hearing from any one who has any kind of Hauppage card, USB or PCI, about whether they think the quality is good, especially if they can compare it to ATI. I'm not real keen on buying him an ATI card, although I am very familiar with their products. I was hoping that maybe Hauppage might make a better card at a lower cost. I like my old Dazzle DVC II a lot, but the lack of a TV tuner on the various Dazzle models doesn't make them a good choice for my brother.

Well I have Owned 2 Hauppaggue Capture Devices and Both Sucked Pretty bad the First one was a Hauppague WinTV USB which Totally Blew Chunks it was really really Bad...The next one was a Lot Better it was a Hauppague WINTV PVR which was a Hardware Mpeg encoder that produces Marginal results...Most USB 2.0 devices totally Suck accept For maybe a couple of the High end Canopus Hardware Mpeg2 encoder Boxes...and the Plain Hauppague WinTV PCI TV Card is Pretty Bad also But it is really cheap and uses a BT848 Decoder Chip so they will work with Most apps...Hauppague is Basicly a Crappy Company that Makes Crap Hardware...For High Quality Video capture I would sugest something like the "Canopus ADVC-50 or ADVC-100" these Devices Capture some of the Highest Quality Video I have seen..It is an Analogue Digital Converter Box that Captures From an analogue Signal and Compresses it to High Quality DV AVI which can then be easilly edited and Encoded to Mpeg1/2 for VCD/SVCD or DVD with Probably the Highest Quality you will get Comeing From an analogue Source Like VHS Tapes and TV...The ADVC-100 ir a Box that has a Bunch of inputs/outputs and Plugin into the PC VIA Firewire Port, it runs about $250 US...The ADVC-50 is a PCI Card that does the same thing as the ADVC-100 but it has Less Inputs/Outputs and Options but Produces the same Quality because they Both use the Same Hardware DV Compression Engine, the ADVC-50 Runs about $155 US.
I have Owned Probably a Dozen different Capture Devices with the ATI All In Wonder Radeon 8500DV being one of the Better ones and the Hauppague WinTV USB was the Worst, and I have spent Probably $1500 Bucks on different ones over the years and Have decoded the next one I get will Be a Canopus ADVC 100 or 50....But if you are Just looking for a Cheaper TV Card then the Bast ones out now are the New ones that Use a 10 Bit Decoder Chip like the New "Asus TV Cards" or the "MSI TV @nywere" and the New PixelView cardsa have a 10bit decoder chip also, you can get one of these Cards for about $60 US...These days USB Capture devices haven"t been totally Perfected yet and only a Vert Few are any Good.....Good Luck...Cheers

I have a DVB-C digital capture card that captures the cable TV signal directly in digital form. It's the Hauppauge DVD-C 2.1 with technotrend drivers. The capture quality is nice but the software is tricky to set up and a little bit buggy. But the DVB-cards works only in Europe...

Here's a screenshot:

I'll second what Luisifer has said here, and point out that I have the Canopus MPEGPRO EMR USB 2.0 unit.

It is an amazing device. The quality is outstanding. There are minor problems with USB 2.0, but they almost always relate to extended monitoring, and not the actual encoding, which is superb.

The Canopus software is another story, it is primitive in the extreme, and is much like rolling a stone wheel down a muddy road. It works tho.

The unit also has some oddities about it, such as the ability to encode MPEG1, but not to make a VCD compliant stream...what that is about I don't know. Nor can it make SVCD MPEG2. The audio out of the box is set to 256 instead of 224...you can change it, but why is it set that way?

Anyway, the bottom line is, that I've spent just about the same amout Luisifer has, and this is the best unit I've ever had: period. Like him, I'd be interested in the DV encoders because I usually reencode my finished product anyway. I'll encode at max CBR and then reencode at a low vbr. I get a very sweet result, and can cram 6hours onto a DVDR.

mark

My experience similar to Lucifer.

Tried - Happauge TV USB - appalling
Pinnacle PCTV BT878 chip OK but dropped frames
ATI 8500DV - not bad at all but still dropped frames
Canopus ADVC50 - fan bloody tastic, I paid £200 in the UK. Worth every penny.

The ADVC100 has Firewire input as well, but seeing as you have to have firewire in the first place to run the ADVC50, why do you need it.

Sorry luisifer, bad spelling day.

Thanks for the information guys. I really appreciate it. After reading the various comments, I have decided not to buy a Hauppage card for my brother. You helped me a lot.
Thanks again.

Sounds like you don't like your brother much Jason.

Well I dont understand why luisifer has so much bad to say about Hauppauge. On my system I have an Ati all in wonder radeon AGP card together with a Dazzle DVCII PCI card and a Hauppauge Win-TV PVR 250 PCI card. The Ati card which has softwareencoding delivers worst captures of the three, while the hardwareencoding Dazzle and Hauppauge cards are very equal in capturequality. The Hauppauge software though is miles ahead of the Moviestar software delivered with the DVCII and dosnt suffer from any bugs at all. I must say I am very satisfied with the Hauppauge card, which I have owned for ½ year (the DVCII and the Ati about 2 years).
I´m in PAL land so I cannot speak for the NTSC versions.

Cheers Flemming

Dear Flemming what PC system are you using?
Mobo, Processor, type of radeon card.., OS
I ask this because I am thinking to buy the radeon 9800SE all-in wonder. I had pretty good DVD mpeg captures with my pIII 733 system in combination with ati 128 32mb all in wonder. So my expectation is that a 2.8 GHz system would deliver even better mpegs realtime. The hauppage pvr 250 card crossed my mind but I read about sync errors and non compliant mpegs.

Neutron

Mobo Soltek with Intel chipset, Ati all in wonder radeon 32 mb, Intel P4 1,6 Ghz northwood CPU, Windows XP pro, 1,5 GB SD ram, 80 GB Western digital HDD/7200 rpm.

Ive had no sync problems at all with my Hauppauge card even when capturing from old VHS tapes.

Cheers Flemming

Hi,

Seems to be interesting. In Germany there are even cheaper Fujitsu/Siemens Win DVB-C (150 euro)copy of that Hauppauge's with analog and digital channels, SPDIF, remote... Ronny, Was it really DVD-C ?? and how much it cost in Sweden.

It was not the DVD-C, it was the DVB-C 2.1 (I guess it was some mis-spelling).

Well, I bought it from Germany and the site said "identical with Hauppage DVB-C 2.1" but it may be a clone or something because it does not actually say Hauppage anyware written on it. But it works with Hauppage drivers as well as with Technotrend drivers. But I prefer using the software DVBControl to record because it's reasonable stable compared to other software and it can also record teletext subtitles in srt format. But it's difficult to set up the channel list (must import channels from other software and edit a little).

I bought it with remote control on http://www.usa-x.org or http://www.dvbshop.tv one year ago. It has built in mpgeg2 decoder hardware with TV-out and audio out. The price seems to be 219 Euro today but there are also some budget versions. I have also bought CI-interface (89 Euro) and Viaccess Redcam CA-module (66 Euro)because the softcam decoders does not work any more since they changed to conax through viaccess tunneling smartcards... So I have boguth a subscription too (14 Euro each month).

It can also be bought on the Swedish website www.dustin.se at a higher price...

So it is a little bit expensive with CI-interface, CAM and subscribed smartcard for the channels but I really like the quality from some of the channels. They best channels are transmitted at a bitrate between 4 Mbit/s and 7 Mbit/s and with resolution of 704x576 or 720x576. Some channels are sent in lower bitrates and lower resolutions and non-standard DVD-resolutions like 544x576 or 480x576 are also used.

More info about DVB software and hardware: http://forums.dvbnetwork.com

Hello,
I am intersting in buying a Hauppauge win tv pvr 250 or 350.
But also looking at pinnacle pctv stereo which costs less than half of the pvr 350?
Anyone who know anything about this pinnacle card?

Also, anyone who knows where to buy at best price and who ship to Sweden? (It's very expensive in Sweden.)

I have the WinTV PVR PCI card. It's OK for opening a TV viewing screen on your computer but I haven't found it very useful for anything else. Presumable it could serve as a TIVO/Replay stand-in but I've never really been motivated to use it that way. My stand-alone Replay is sooo much more convenient.

Actually once you start wanting serious capture capabilities--Hauppauge's products are NOT going to satisfy. Part of the problem has been their software--which kinda sucks. Intervideo has a bunch of stuff like WinDVR & WinCoder that's a better substitute but only worksthe WDM drivers and NOT the Hauppauge VFW drivers (which they have been slow to evolve past for their PVR cards).

If I'd just stuck with the original 49 buck Hauppauge capture card I started with I'd consider it pretty worth the price.

Thanks!