PVR-500 vs Plextor vs USB-PVR?

[ben_gb]

Hi,

I've been a long term (happy) user of Sage, using PVR-350/250 cards for recording.

I'm now building a new 2-tuner system, this time in the UK (so using PAL), and I was wondering what the best cards to use for this might be...particularly as there are now several new devices supported.

Basically I'm looking for the best picture quality and stability.

Has anyone compared the quality of recordings with the Hauppauge 500, USB-PVR and Plextor?

Any issues about stability with any of these?

Thanks for any feedback!

Regards,
Ben

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by ben_gb

Has anyone compared the quality of recordings with the Hauppauge 500, USB-PVR and Plextor?

Ben, I only have 250's and a PVR-USB2. Just my experience, but I find that occasionally the PVR-USB2 plays back choppy ... live or prerecorded. Haven't taken the time to figure out why, but when the problem occurs I check which tuner is the culprit and it's always the PVR-USB2.

The 250's have always worked from day one ... and I have one dating back to 2000.

T.

[nexx9]

I have the Hauppauge 250 and the Plextor 402U connected to STV. Mpeg recordings look pretty much the same on both to me. Pretty good quality, always depending very much on the source channel. I use analog cable for both tuners and only sometimes record from my digital cable via s-vid. No skipping or jumping for me on the usb2 Plextor at all. (P4 2.8 HT 1G 800FSB)

The Divx side of the Plextor is disappointing. Best quality looks good, but compression is horrible. An hour show wind's up being about 1.6G.

Using VirtualDub on a 'Best' Mpeg file recorded by either hardware encoder I can get that same (better, really) quality at below a G.

I've tweaked, creating different recording profiles for Divx in Sage properties but in the end, one-pass hardware encoding on an inexpensive card like the TV402U doesn't give you the big space savings you see in two-pass transcoding. Nex

[ben_gb]

Hm...looks like I should stick with what I know and go with Hauppauge card option. A reason to go with the Plextor would be to use DIVX, but it sounds like it might not really be worth it. I'll be outputing to a 42" plasma, so need to try and get the best quality possible.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Regards,
Ben

[Opus4]

The PVR-USB2 usage may depend on the USB2 implementation. I have a 250, PVR-USB2, and a Convertx TV402U. They all record MPEG2 files w/o any problems here. The 250 & PVR-USB2 have been used on 2 different PCs, w/o problems on either one.

- Andy

[perf]

Has it been confirmed that the PAL Plextor works with Sage? It was released quite late (December), and I remember a Dane posting about it not working.

/Per

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The PVR-USB2 usage may depend on the USB2 implementation. - Andy

Andy ... Can you explain ... ?? I have it connected to a standard USB2 port from the PC ... Is there something else I am missing ... ??

Thanks, T.

[Opus4]

I used the word "may" because I thought someone wrote a long time ago that they had problems using some USB2 connection on a mb & then it worked fine on an add-in USB2 card. It might be a case where all USB2 implementations strictly follow the USB2 specs and work equally well, but some work more equally well than others.

- Andy

[nexx9]

When I attach an Archos Jukebox to an older 4 port IOGear usb2 card (with all the latest drivers), the speeds I get are lower than when I hook-up the same unit to more modern usb2 ports. No proof of anything, just a direction to poke around in. Nex

[Lucas]

I use a PVR250 and a PVR-USB2. I find that by comparing the files generated on both that for S-Video/Composite captures, the PVR-USB2 is better/sharper.

This is strange since the two devices are supposed to have the same chipset....
or I am seeing things...

The USB2 is also not susceptible to its drivers not loading at bootup sometimes, a problem from which the PVR250 suffers from on my system.

When I had just the 250, after a restart I would be left without encoders (thus no recordings taking place), with the USB2, I have a Disaster Recover solution.

[Watter]

Originally Posted by Lucas

I use a PVR250 and a PVR-USB2. I find that by comparing the files generated on both that for S-Video/Composite captures, the PVR-USB2 is better/sharper.

That's odd. I have both as well and have found exactly the opposite to be true for me.