Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR

[SHS]

Look like about 8 weeks
So it be most likely in March when we see it

[Chriscic]

With an entirely new capture chip, it will be interesting to see how the quality stacks up vs. the HD-DVR. Wonder what the max recording bitrate is for MPEG4 and MPEG2?

The HD-DVR does a pretty darn good job in terms of quality; using best quality it is a bit softer than my satellite box but not a lot, and that may well be the decoders involved vs. the actual recording itself.

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by SHS

Look like about 8 weeks
So it be most likely in March when we see it

Keep us posted as price and availability becomes more clear...

I'm looking forward to seeing how this performs with SageTV. I was on the fence with the USB version but couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger for a component that (according to some reports) could disrupt my normally stable system.

-uberpixel

[SHS]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

Keep us posted as price and availability becomes more clear...

I'm looking forward to seeing how this performs with SageTV. I was on the fence with the USB version but couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger for a component that (according to some reports) could disrupt my normally stable system.

-uberpixel

Price set at $159 that shouldn't change
Yes Let all know when they availability

[amt]

Looks like a nice product. I wonder if this works with Linux.

However, I was really hoping someone would come out with a device that captured component video, but then just streamed over Ethernet, like the HDHR. That, IMO, would be the very best solution.

[wayner]

When this comes out in March or so will it be able to encode in MPEG-2 in SageTV? My understanding is that MPEG-2 support is up to the software which is Sage in this case. Sage has said that they will support the device but does that mean MPEG-2 and H.264 or just H.264 since it seems like MPEG-2 requires some additional work.

[Clift]

MPEG-2 support is my number one reason for wanting this new HD PVR. I hope Sage supports MPEG-2 upon release.

[tvmaster2]

This new card is a PCIEX1 card, correct? The 2250 is the same.
My HTPC has one PCIEX1 slot, and one PCIEX16 slot.
I guess I'm out of luck running both cards from the same box?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

This new card is a PCIEX1 card, correct? The 2250 is the same.
My HTPC has one PCIEX1 slot, and one PCIEX16 slot.
I guess I'm out of luck running both cards from the same box?

Possibly. It depends on whether your motherboard PCIEX16 slot supports anything but a graphics card.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Possibly. It depends on whether your motherboard PCIEX16 slot supports anything but a graphics card.

Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
(The PCI Express x16 slot conforms to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
1 x PCI Express x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

is that bad?

[Taddeusz]

x1 PCIe cards will run fine in anything. In my SageTV server I have an Intel NIC running beautifully from the single x16 slot.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
(The PCI Express x16 slot conforms to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
1 x PCI Express x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

is that bad?

I would like to say MOST motherboard x16 slots will accept x1, x4,... cards. However the only way to know is to try it and see if you can get it to work. You might be able to contact the manufacturer of the motherboard as well.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

x1 PCIe cards will run fine in anything. In my SageTV server I have an Intel NIC running beautifully from the single x16 slot.

What he said! That is what I was trying to imply.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

With an entirely new capture chip, it will be interesting to see how the quality stacks up vs. the HD-DVR. Wonder what the max recording bitrate is for MPEG4 and MPEG2?

The HD-DVR does a pretty darn good job in terms of quality; using best quality it is a bit softer than my satellite box but not a lot, and that may well be the decoders involved vs. the actual recording itself.

absolutely............i would expect it to be the result of decoding to component, then re-encoding..........i'm impressed that it is a good as it is with the extra decode/encode step

something similar happened in the cell phone area...................mobile to mobile calls used to be encoded to low bit rate voice at the cellphone, converted to 64kbit pcm, transmitted out to the other mobile's area, encoded to low bit rate voice then sent to the receiving mobile.............this resulted in what is known as tandem encoding and resulted in not the greatest voice quality............as mobile-mobile calls became a bigger and bigger percentage of all phone calls on cellular systems, network infrastructure vendors introduced 'vocoder bypass' where the low bit rate encoded voice signal was transmitted to the other end of the call directly, bypassing the 2nd encode/decode

more encoding/decoding ==> bad, but doing at very high quality settings lessens the pain

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I would like to say MOST motherboard x16 slots will accept x1, x4,... cards. However the only way to know is to try it and see if you can get it to work. You might be able to contact the manufacturer of the motherboard as well.

What he said! That is what I was trying to imply.

My motherboard company, Gigabyte, just returned my question with the oddest answer:
"Dear Customer: As long as there are only one PCIe slot being used you can use the x16 slot for x1 cards."

Surely, they must be in error, no? Only one PCIEX card allowed at a time?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

My motherboard company, Gigabyte, just returned my question with the oddest answer:
"Dear Customer: As long as there are only one PCIe slot being used you can use the x16 slot for x1 cards."

Surely, they must be in error, no? Only one PCIEX card allowed at a time?

That does sound strange. I suppose what they mean is that the x16 is only designed as a graphics slot however if you have no others installed it will accept a non-graphics card in the x16 slot. Still sounds like a strange way to say that to me. If that is even what they meant. If you have multiple PCIe cards (USB card and Tuner maybe?) and you plug them in you can confirm whether the x16 slot works with something else in the x1 slot - just a suggestion.

[lpitman]

What that means...one x16 slot could slow the other one down if there were 2 slots and one has a slow device in it...

[bhyman1]

Originally Posted by lpitman

What that means...one x16 slot could slow the other one down if there were 2 slots and one has a slow device in it...

The x16 slot might become and x8 slot, but in the real world you won't notice it.

Basically, you'll have zero problems.

[PLUCKYHD]

Don't know if this has been said or not but why not use a hdfury and remove the encryption then capture with hdpvr. I can't want for someone to try this. I realize the hdfury is expensive but if I could record straight hdmi I would be in.

[stanger89]

The HDFury doesn't output HDMI, unless there's a new version I missed. It's HDMI in, Analog (component/VGA) out.

[peternm22]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Don't know if this has been said or not but why not use a hdfury and remove the encryption then capture with hdpvr. I can't want for someone to try this. I realize the hdfury is expensive but if I could record straight hdmi I would be in.

If I recall correctly, I think the HDFury only outputs analog signals. It accepts encrypted HDMI, but then that is converted to analog for output.