Dwavs made me do it...

[Hearmoretalkless]

;)

I didn't want to hassle y'all with this... but time might be of the essence. Dwavs spotted my GNG posting and said to come here. So here I am. :P

My wife wants a DVD recorder.

I agree, but for the money, I'd also like a DVR/PVR with DVD-burning capability. I don't want a dozen DVDs sitting around with Oprah on them, or COPS or whatever. Save that on the DVR, and save the good shows (like 'Over There' and 'Band of Brothers' on DVD to watch, watch and watch again.

We have the burner, the big HDs and we're getting the new motherboard, as-fast-as-we-can-afford chipset etc. when we choose the card. Also included will be as much RAM as we can cram into the box.

What I can't decide is what tv-tuner/capture card to consider.

One thing I would really like to have is a firewire input, so I can put DV straight into the computer without going to RCA jacks. Due to the age of our TV, we'll have to go RCA to the TV, but shouldn't sacrifice the recording quality, right? That homemade porn should get saved for posterity in as good a quality as possible... so in 30 years when she denies that we EVER did ____________, I'll be able to load the DVD and show her we DID so!!!

:D

I was looking at this: (LINKIE) (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1050249&sku=O38-1052) because it has the DV in and seems to do everything I want it to. The Resolution and frame capture rate seems a bit slow.

In GNG, someone recommended an ATI All-In-Wonder card, but I don't see that it has a firewire-in. Should I sacrifice that requirement and go with a separate firewire card to get my DV in?

Suggestions?

[Hearmoretalkless]

No one has an opinion, suggestion or advice?

C'mon GTers... someone must have SOMETHING to say.

:cool:

[Washington,D.C.]

I don't use my PC to watch TV but some info here


http://dvr.about.com/od/capturetvwithacomputer/tp/toppick1.htm


http://dvr.about.com/od/capturetvwithacomputer/bb/bybcc.htm

[Hearmoretalkless]

Thanks.

To me, it looks like most of the ATI Al-in-Wonder type cards are tuners, instead of tuners/PVR/DVR etc

I didn't see an ATI card that specified an output mode to the TV.

I have to keep looking -- anyone got any further advice?

W

[HAVOC]

All-in-Wonder / TV-Wonder cards have tuners and come with software that does the PVR heavy lifting.

TV-Wonders don't do output, that's dependant on your video card.

I'm almost certain that all the All-in-Wonders have at least S-Video out and composite out, in addition to DVI and VGA. No component-out afaik.

My biggest issue with these cards is they output sound to the line-in of your sound card, so you're limited by it's capabilities, and I've found that can introduce some video/audio sunc issues.

I just picked up a USB 2.0 TV Wonder and it looks like it'll be a USB audio device, rather than running into the PC sound card. I'm hoping that will aleviate some of the issues.

I've liked ATi's software package with previous AiW cards.

[Washington,D.C.]

The ATI is suppose to have the easiest to use software but Hauppauge hardware seems to have much fewer complaints and more happy users.The popular TV card chipset is called "BTTV" chipset.Here's some PVR info,

http://www.chris-tv.com/

[RaiderRodney]

That looks like a nice setup. If you decide to go with it I would suggest getting it here though.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324210

Newegg also has it, but out of stock right now. You can't beat Newegg or Zipzoomfly :)

Good luck.