PCIE dual tuner card with COMPONENT in and DIVX hardware capture!!!

[antisoshal]

found this, was a bitch finding anyone selling it. Had to order it from the UK, but I see no bad reviews of it anywhere other than people lamenting its too late because digital cable will kill all the HD recording capabilities. I'm more interested in the fact that its both COMPONENT in and does DIVX hardware encoding.

http://comprousa.com/en///product/e9...-hardware.html

Vista E900F

And for everyone complaining about Vista/Windows 7 support, this is apparently designed FOR that, and the oldest system it supports is XP SP3.

Who knows how long it will take me to get it when I do. If anyone finds a source for this in the USA, let me know. As of now I can only find it in New Zealand, Australia and The UK.

On the outside chance anyone has actually used one of these, please tell me your horror stories now because this seems too good to be true.

[stanger89]

It's only SD.

[antisoshal]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's only SD.

Yeah, 480i, but the quality will be better than SVHS, which is my primary goal. Also even at 480i, it means you can capture 16x9 HD from your box while watching HD stations. Using SVHS you get a squashed letterbox version that ends up only using about 300 lines for actual picture. I have comcast and they have switched to ALL digital at this point here, so any tuner card is more or less useless to me.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by antisoshal

Yeah, 480i, but the quality will be better than SVHS, which is my primary goal.

Not significantly better (if at all) in my experience.

Also even at 480i, it means you can capture 16x9 HD from your box while watching HD stations.

Is that a limitation of your STB? My Dish boxes would output 16x9 over S/Video IIRC.

I have comcast and they have switched to ALL digital at this point here, so any tuner card is more or less useless to me.

No moreso than for Dish, and I used a PVR250 with decent success before I got my HD PVR and R5000.

[antisoshal]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Not significantly better (if at all) in my experience.



Is that a limitation of your STB? My Dish boxes would output 16x9 over S/Video IIRC.



No moreso than for Dish, and I used a PVR250 with decent success before I got my HD PVR and R5000.

My comcast box puts out WAY better quality in component than SVHS. As far as the HD channels, it will letterbox the 16x9 HD channels and cram it in 4x3 display space for SVHS. SVHS is not capable of giving you anything other that a 4x3 aspect technically, so if you are getting a full screen 16x9 display, then the resize is happening after the SVHS out. SVHS output is a standardized analog signal that's really nothing more than the color and luminance signals separated to different lines to eliminate cross modulation noise. You can simply re-combine them and convert SVHS back to composite with a dongle if you cared to. Either way, composite video is a standard 4x3 analog video signal. Component is a separate signal format that uses combined chrominance and luminance in the red green and blue domains, and has nothing in common technically with composite or SVHS. Its also inherently capable of expressing aspect ratios other than 4x3.

Im also pretty interested in the hardware Divx encoding. Currently, I go back and re-encode all my shows from mpeg to divx then edit out the commercials. We record several shows constantly and save them for when we have nothing to do, so I fill up a terabyte array pretty quickly if I dont downcode them.

[antisoshal]

Actually, doing a little research, apparently there IS a widescreen S-Video format available: "The S-Video connection also has general provision for widescreen signaling through a DC offset applied to the chrominance signal; however, this is a more recent development, and is not widely supported."

However, the resolution of the S-Video signal is still technically much worse than component: "Due to the separation of the video into brightness and color components, S-Video is sometimes considered a type of component video signal; however, it is also the poorest, quality-wise, being far surpassed by the more complex component video schemes, such as RGB. What distinguishes S-Video from these better component-video schemes is that S-Video carries the color information as one signal. This means that the color has to be encoded in some way, and as such, NTSC, PAL, and SECAM signals are all decidedly different through S-Video. Thus, for full compatibility, the connected devices not only have to be S-Video compatible, but also compatible in terms of color encoding. In addition, S-Video suffers from reduced color resolution. NTSC S-Video color resolution is typically 120 lines horizontal (approximately 160 pixels edge-to-edge)[citation needed], versus 250 lines horizontal for the Rec. 601-encoded signal of a DVD, or 30 lines horizontal for standard VCRs."

[SHS]

Originally Posted by antisoshal

found this, was a bitch finding anyone selling it. Had to order it from the UK, but I see no bad reviews of it anywhere other than people lamenting its too late because digital cable will kill all the HD recording capabilities. I'm more interested in the fact that its both COMPONENT in and does DIVX hardware encoding.

http://comprousa.com/en///product/e9...-hardware.html

Vista E900F

And for everyone complaining about Vista/Windows 7 support, this is apparently designed FOR that, and the oldest system it supports is XP SP3.

Who knows how long it will take me to get it when I do. If anyone finds a source for this in the USA, let me know. As of now I can only find it in New Zealand, Australia and The UK.

On the outside chance anyone has actually used one of these, please tell me your horror stories now because this seems too good to be true.

That card got really bad user review on newegg it wasn't funny in fact newegg sold each card for $15 with free S/H and no return just get rid of them.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by antisoshal

My comcast box puts out WAY better quality in component than SVHS.

Comparing 480i to 480i?

As far as the HD channels, it will letterbox the 16x9 HD channels and cram it in 4x3 display space for SVHS.

My Dish box will output full frame "squshed" HD over S/Video (fills the 480i top to bottom, no bars but requires unstretching).

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Comparing 480i to 480i?

My Dish box will output full frame "squshed" HD over S/Video (fills the 480i top to bottom, no bars but requires unstretching).

I think he meant HD to 480i letterbox is better quality than 480i to 480i, which is true.

[stanger89]

What I meant was is the OP comparing 480i component to S/Video (ie both at 480i), if not then yes Component will be much better.

[Graygeek]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I think he meant HD to 480i letterbox is better quality than 480i to 480i, which is true.

HD to 480i letterbox (720x480) looks really good recorded via component.. DVD quality and looks great on my 42" Sony. I am using HAVA Platinum to record a ton of HD content that I watch and toss. The HAVA works very well with SAGE when used with HAVAFUN Channel changer.

[antisoshal]

Hopefully they have had a year to fix it. The drivers look fairly new, so I'm gonna take a chance. I was comparing capturing 480i over S-Video to 480i via component. In particular, my comcast boxes will letterbox and shrink any HD content to the S-Video, so its useless. This card SHOULD downsize the 720p comcast component out to 480i. I believe I can force the output that way as well. My primary goal is to increase the quality of the capture and get wide screen out of the retarded comcast boxes.

[stanger89]

The specs say 480i, so I bet it doesn't support 720p input. I think you need something like the HAVA HD if you want that sort of functionality.

[SHS]

The chipset is same one that found on HVR-2250
That rigth it doesn't support 720p nor 1080i input
It only support 480i and 480p and both 4:3, 16:9 mode.

[antisoshal]

Originally Posted by SHS

The chipset is same one that found on HVR-2250
That rigth it doesn't support 720p nor 1080i input
It only support 480i and 480p and both 4:3, 16:9 mode.

480P is good with me. I can force the output of my box to that. I looked in to the HAVA but it seems a bit high maintenance at this point, and I need something simple because I'm away a lot and the wife has to be capable of operating/modifying it. Hell even if its the same quality I get now, going straight to Divx instead of Mpeg will save me a step, so thats an improvement. We shall see.

[Graygeek]

Originally Posted by antisoshal

I looked in to the HAVA but it seems a bit high maintenance at this point, and I need something simple because I'm away a lot and the wife has to be capable of operating/modifying it.

HAVA is far from high maintenance ... once your setup it just works with no issues. It is very stable, I cant recall the last time mine has even been rebooted.

Pic quality via component is great and it just works. I have had more issues with my HDHR's than my HAVA.