Hauppauge or ATI Capture Card

[xintensex]

Can someone help me decide on what capture device the better of two, Also what are some of the best capture devices out and what ones have the best quality, Thanks

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by xintensex

Can someone help me decide on what capture device the better of two, Also what are some of the best capture devices out and what ones have the best quality, Thanks

For SageTV Hauppauge is the way to go ... It is an MPEG-2 Hardware Encoding Card ... The ATI AIW is Software Eencoding and is not supported for capturing by SageTV yet. But, keep in mind Software Eencoding would tax your CPU more. Hardware Encoding does all the work on the TV Card freeing up the CPU for other stuff. This means you can use other software and the system would not require a high end CPU. Thus, a 600MHz PIII will work fine with SageTV.

Check out the TV Card options here ...

http://sage.tv/requirements.html?sageSub=tv

[rich_l]

I have a hauppauge 250. I love it. It has hardware mpeg encoding, which means that i can actually use my computer for other things, (games, music, etc) while sage is recording. Im not sure about ati, but hauppage's line of cards is the pvr-150, 250, 350, and the 500 all have hardware encoding. They have a usb 2.0 device as well.

Are you going to hook it up to a tv or are you just using your computer moniter? Are you going to need hdtv capabilities? Are you going to be using satellite, cable...?

If you mention those, others here will be able to help out more.

I would go with hauppage, but im biased.

[Ghost]

I have 2 ATI e-Home Wonder cards. They use the same hardware encoding as the PVR250 and are half the price. They are actually used as an OEM card in most commercial HTPCs, but you can pick them up from newegg for $60.

[remmy925]

I was in the same delima that you were. Didnt know which card to choose. All seemed to have decent output. Most cards marked PVR have hardware encode. The deciding factor for me was support. ATI cards seem to be problematic from what I read on message boards (not just ones here). Hauppauge cards tend to be less problematic. Also Hauppauge cards seem to be the standard. Every major PRV program or front end I found supported the WinPVR 250. Chose it, and I like it. And I assume there is a reason why it is soo highly chosen to support.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Ghost

I have 2 ATI e-Home Wonder cards. They use the same hardware encoding as the PVR250 and are half the price. They are actually used as an OEM card in most commercial HTPCs, but you can pick them up from newegg for $60.

Yep ... The new 150 seems to be aother new less costly option to the 250. But either way Hauppauge works well with Sage.