PVR: Plextor or Hauppauge? & Xfer to IPod?

[jjc007]

I do not yet have a PVR nor SageTV. I was looking at the Plextor ConvertX TV-402U (which hardware encodes to MPEG-4) and the WinTV-PVR-350 PCI. My immediate desire is to be able to record TV shows and download them to a video IPod. Does anyone have any recommendations on which hardware I should buy?
Also, SageTV advertises on their homepage - "Transfer your favorite recorded shows to your laptop or video iPod easily!" but I don't see how from their website. Is this a straightforward process or do I need to get different software (or a customization?). Would it be easier if the files were already in MPEG-4 (hence the Plextor PVR)?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jjc007

I do not yet have a PVR nor SageTV. I was looking at the Plextor ConvertX TV-402U (which hardware encodes to MPEG-4) and the WinTV-PVR-350 PCI. My immediate desire is to be able to record TV shows and download them to a video IPod. Does anyone have any recommendations on which hardware I should buy?

My advice would be a PVR 150 (or 500 if you want dual tuners). By all acounts the Plextor, while supporting MPEG-4, only gives you a 50% reduction in size with MPEG, you're still looking at 1-1.5GB/hr in MPEG-4. If you go with the (much cheaper) 150 or 500, you can transcode to MPEG-4 and save probably on the order of 75-80%, maybe more. Guess it depends on your priorities, with the plextor you could get down to about 100MB/hr, which would be great for an iPod, but unacceptable (IMO) for a TV.

Also, SageTV advertises on their homepage - "Transfer your favorite recorded shows to your laptop or video iPod easily!" but I don't see how from their website. Is this a straightforward process or do I need to get different software (or a customization?). Would it be easier if the files were already in MPEG-4 (hence the Plextor PVR)?

I assume they're referring to recordings being standard MPEG-2 (or 4) so they can just be copied to your other devices. Of course a user made a program for this as well:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...highlight=ipod

[Alfiegerner]

I have a plextor and a pvr-150 and I would agree with stanger. The picture quality from the pvr-150 is better overall and also more configurable.

[folly12345]

I will second the thoughts of Stanger and Alfiegerner. I have never been able to get as good a quality out of the plextor as my hauppage 150 cards. I bought the plextor for the hardware mpeg 4, but quickly regretted the purchase and bought more hauppage cards. I still have the plextor attached to my Sage server, but it is rarely used as it has a very low encoder_merit.