Treetop:
I'd still like to hear why you'd recommend against the ATI All in Wonder. It's only by knowing both sides you can make a good decision.
Do you have another recommendation also?
Sorry about that... I lost track of this thread (caught hung up in the "wifi" thread :lol: )
Everything about to be typed is hear-say, as I have never owned a AIW...
ATI AIW's are good cards for what they do. You mentioned that you would like the freedom to record in multiple formats rather than being locked into mpeg2. That is a valid point, and one that can't be argued. ATI AIW's do have there place in a HTPC, albeit, a small place. Most people use the AIW to record in WMV format, as mpeg2 cannot be streamed (that I'm aware of). Another use, is that some peole will hook up there game consoles to their HTPCs (why? I have no earthly idea).
The reason why these are not the "preferred" card, comes down to the Qaulity of the recordings. As mentioned, the AIW's use software to encode the data, putting a lot of pressure on the CPU... so much in fact that you, even with a 2.4g CPU, you would only be able to record one stream at a time. You may even have problems recording and playing back at the same time (depends on computer). You certainly wouldn't want (or be able to) use the computer for anything else... note: you could probably still web surf, but the computer will be so sluggish, that you won't want to.
CPU on a 1.8g machine: AIW = 60 - 80% PVR-250= 3-15%
The taxing of the CPU can play a roll in quality, but even if you aren't maxing it out, the colors will not be as sharp, scenes with lots of motion (panning for one) will contain artifacts, etc. The picture is just not as good as the PVR cards!
One of the main reasons I suggest a PVR card, is that if you want to upgrade to multiple tuners (to record several channels at once), you will have the CPU cycles to spare.
Downside to the PVR-250 is that it doesn't have an output. You still need a decent video card for this. The PVR-350 has an onboard decoder for output, but due to limitations, can not display the desktop, etc... not ideal for me.
Almost every application has built in support for the PVR cards. Some, like Sage, ONLY support hardware encoding cards. To get around the "streaming problem" of mpeg2, Sage and BeyondTV -(soon) have clients that allow you to view your recordings on other computers on you network. Another option, built into BTV, but avaiblable outside of any program, is to transcode the mpeg2 into the format you want. BTV has automatic trancoding built-in for the WMV format (they used to have Divx, but something went wrong with the licensing and they dropped it). Upside - saves space, wmv can be streamed. Downside - takes a while to transcode a show, but you can set time parameters so it only does this overnight, etc.
There are other harware encoding cards on the market, but I can't remember any of the names off the top of my head.. I think one, is the E-homewonder (?)
There are just not as main stream as the PVR-250s.
Another card soon to released is the
PVR-500 which has dual tuners on one card!
About the ATI dongle. Due to Macrovision, it is limited to outputing up to 480p. If you want to get high resolutions out of it, you need to use DVD-idle to break the macrovision. This is why I would choose a transcoder over the dongle, but both are good choices)
If you want to record High-Definition streams...
Currently, in the US (and Canada AFAIK), we can only record OTA (over the air) HD broadcasts. There are no cards that can record HD content off a cable or satellite box (I think this is still the case, I haven't really kept up with it lately).
I'm missing something else, but my brain just stopped in its tracks.
Treetop
). If they are in mpeg2 format, you have to download them.
