External TV Tuners/PVR Devices Tested

Solomon writes "TV Tuners for the PC have existed for a long time but with the ever increasing popularity of TiVo-like services and the possibility of replicating such features on your Windows PC with little effort and a small investment, tuners have been getting a lot of attention this year. Today there's three-way shootout posted at TechSpot with products from Digistor, Transcend and a very appealing offer from RTV called the VEG that lets you play consoles in your monitor. Although neither of these devices can match TiVo completely, they do give you a very cheap alternative."

I thought it was unwise -

[thewldisntenuff]

...to use USB tv tuners. Arent there problems with moving all that video across the USB interface? I remember talk about making an Xbox run Myth off a usb tuner, and it was quickly denounced as impossible....I heard the same thing about a laptop and a WinTV USB hauppauge tuner....

So? Is this true?

-thewldisntenuff

no interest whatsoever

[l3v1]

Warning: I'm on my Christmas Trolling Spree (TM) :)

I mean things like:

replicating such features on your Windows PC with little effort and a small investment

doesn't make me shiver or feel anything besides deep sadness for the (again) experienced ingorance wave.

First, I don't care how newbies are just discovering that their computers can do more than playing nobrainer video games for the price of a used car.

Second, still don't really care how greenhorns can make a Windows PC record anything. I mean I do to some extent like helping people out, or such, but not to the extent to read about it on /. front

Then, let's say there are people out there who use their computers for PVR-like purposes for more years than the supposedly informed writer knew such pieces of hardware exists. Sometimes I just wonder how many useless rants could one write on some evident applications of computers these days and there would be a mass of people who would still buy them as new stuff.

I'm out, hopefully no more /. this year :) More "news" like this on the front page and it will be for good :)

Re:Cheap?

[spicydragonz]

With Myth TV on a pc you can then edit/burn/email shows/clips to people. Also since the system is next to your stereo you might as well just play your mp3 collection. Plus since most people have "extra" Pcs around you can use one old PC as a Myth box for cost savings.

Use Firewire then.

[SeaFox]

I don't know what's available on the PC for this. It is known that USB really isn't up to the requirements for streaming video. On the Mac side there the new El Gato EyeTV 500 [elgato.com]. The choice in Firewire is mostly because it is required for HD video streaming, not to alleviate some USB silliness.

Re:Notes from A MythTV User

[Al Al Cool J]

A few weeks ago, I picked up a Hauppauge PVR-250 which I'm using with MythTV. It all works great, except when it comes time to burn to DVD. It turns out that the variable bitrate mpeg2 streams that the Hauppauge PVR-250/350 cards put out aren't fully compliant (or at least not using the latest linux ivtv drivers). This isn't a problem during playback, but when you want to convert to DVD format using standard tools like transcode/mpeg2desc and mplex, the audio and video drift out of sync.

It took me quite a bit of googling and trial and error to figure out how to deal with the problem. (short answer: replex; longer answer: get mythtvburn and see how it does it). If I'd known about this going in, I would have spent more time researching other hardware options.

Just bought me a TiVo

[DavidD_CA]

I just picked up a $199 (after rebate) TiVo from Best Buy.. the 80 gig model. Add to the $199 the cost of lifetime subscription to TiVo's programming service ($299).

So yeah $500 is a lot for a glorified VCR... but I have to say that the damn thing is so easy to use it was worth it.

I set the thing up to my wireless network in minutes. Now I can stream MP3s onto it from my server. Photos too.

Sure you can piece your own together using MPEG decoder cards and free (or not) software, but you're gonna spend more time tinkering than you would watching TV. And if you include the price of your computer, you're gonna spend a lot more than the $500 that I did.

Not to mention the thing will never lock up, get a virus, or need to be reinstalled.

Re:USB HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

No USB tuner works with Linux. Nada. Zilch. None. The closest was a half ass driver for the original Hauppauge USB PVR orphaned year ago.

DVB or nothing

[Nik13]

I must say I used to do that analog capturing stuff, but even with the top cards, the quality is very sub-par compared to DVB capturing. You loose a lot doing non-prefect mpeg decoding, then passed thru cheap DACs, filters, wiring (and interferences), more filters, ADC (crappy sampling), on-the-fly (not very efficient) encoding... You just loose too much quality, even with much higher file sizes. DVB just works, 100% quality - no loss at all, small file sizes, cpu loads around 1%... It's just all around better. The only thing is, of course you need to have some DVB streams available (I use DVB-S), it won't do a thing for crappy analog cable or the like (I don't know anyone who still uses that).

If not, I'd get a satellite set-top box/PVR dealie. For 300$ cdn, you get one with a 80gb HD in it. It works *out of the box*. No OS install, no patching/upgrading/rebooting, no drivers needed, no setting up the remote control manually for your apps, no codecs required, no PVR software to install, no BSODs, none of that - plug it and it works. And just like DVB capturing, it's lossless (they both record the mpeg from the transportstream).

I've given up on analog capturing about 4 years ago, and I'm NEVER going back to that. I'd do OTA as well if there broadcasts in my area.