Newbie hardware question

[buzzy]

Hi all

I'm building a PC which will be used as a PVR, MP3, and DVD player among other things. Should I go for a Hauppauge PVR 250, 350, or an ATI All-in-wonder?

Arguments for an AIW card are:
handles DVD playback
has basic PVR functionality
comes with a remote
the remote has plugins for Winamp

The Hauppauge cards:
provide better quality encoding (is this true?)
come with a remote
have basic PVR functionality

On the downside:
As I understand it, the Hauppauge cards don't do DVD playback, so I'd have to use Sage (or similar) and have the playback handled by a VGA card and a software decoder, or another dedicated decoder card.
On the other hand, the ATI card doesn't encode as well as the Hauppauge cards, and isn't as well supported by applications like Sage and Snapstream.

I won't be doing any TV-output, it'll all be shown on the PC monitor due to space restrictions in the room. It's important that I can play MP3 and DVD movies (from the disc, not ripped to HDD) and do it all by using the remote rather than sitting at the keyboard.

Thoughts?

[gplasky]

Because AIW does NOT have hardware encoding chip it is not an option with Sage. The Hauppauge PVR 250 WILL do DVD playback. It is the PVR350 that will NOT. Based on what you want to do you should be pretty happy if you went with the PVR 250.


Gerry

[stanger89]

First I'll qualify my response by stating I'm very happy with Sage+250. Also I have never used and AIW but I did have an ATI TV Wonder and the software was crap (but that was a while ago).

First some comments on your statements/assumtions:

The AIW don't "handle DVD playback" any different than any other video card, they still use software decoders.

"basic PVR funcitonality" is probably a tremendous understatement

Also the AIW aren't well supported by anything but ATI's software.

The Hauppauge cards also come with a remote (don't know about winamp but I think it's possible with the hauppage remote)

I'm a firm believer that real-time hardware encoding is far supperior to real-time software encoding in both quality and resource requirements (the 250's use ~0 CPU to record).

The Hauppauge cards have no PVR capabilities using Hauppauge software.


Now to answer your questions:

From what you say you want to do, an how you will be displaying it, a 260+SageTV combo is definitely the way to go. Sage will take care of all the PVR/DVD/Mp3 duties easlily using the Hauppauge remote. Only thing is that you'll need some additional decoders for playing DVDs (the Hauppage decoders can't). Those additional filters can come from any DVD software you have installed/will install (Sonic Cineplayer/WinDVD/PowerDVD). Or if you don't have any DVD software you can get the Sonic filterpack (~$15) since you don't need the whole DVD player app, but I'll let you know that the Sonic filters don't support multichannel analog only 2ch or digital passthrough to an external decoder.

That got kind of long and probably confusing so just ask if you have any questions.

[buzzy]

Hi guys - thanks for the responses - most helpful!

I didn't realise that the PVR250 handles DVD playback - that's excellent. With the AIW and DVD playback, I meant that the AIW software suite can handle the DVD playback, admittedly using a software decoder.

By "basic PVR functionality" I meant the Haupauge cards' included Win-TV Scheduler software - I understand that Sage provides much more advanced functionality.

I'm pretty happy with the conclusion that a PVR-250 and Sage is the way to go, I'm just a little confused by Gerry's statement that the PVR-250 can handle DVD playback, but that stranger89 says I need a software decoder (PowerDVD - fine, I have a copy of that) in order to do the decoding. If the PVR250 does it, why do I need a software decoder too?

Thanks for the help

[dkardatzke]

The PVR-250 has nothing to do with DVD playback, it's purely a video encoding card. The playback for anything recorded from the PVR-250 goes through your graphics system using software decoding. Unless of course you are using a third party hardware decoding card.

[buzzy]

Thanks Dan - all clear now. I guess I'm off to buy a PVR-250 when the next paycheck comes through

I have to say that the support I've received on the SageTV forums has been exceptional - this is the kind of stuff that makes me happy about forking over money when it comes to buying the software.

[SHS]

Yes winamp it's possible with the hauppage remote