My new capture card

[drfsupercenter]

I just bought a WinTV-PVR-150 card and I am very happy, I am recording Who Wants to Be a Millionaire now. It is a bit pixelated, looks like it should be 320x240. Anyone know why? I will play around with it a bit once I am done recording the show... it's the celebrity edition, and I started it late (frickin software took too long to load!)

Duh, the capture settings button. LOL

[BR7]

Glad your happy with itWould you mind posting some results once you feel comfortable with it because I am thinking of getting one in the future and I'm just curious to see what it looks like
Thanks

[Furiousg]

Oddly enough, I knew who started this thread just by the title

But why Millionaire?? Do you watch that show?...or just looking for a test subject ?

[blutach]

I dare say drf could count the $$$ in your sig furiousg.

Regards

[MikeyBK]

Let me know your results as well Danny.
I was just about to get one from Newegg along with a couple other things. $63.99 for the retail WinTV-PVR-150 MCE 1042 Tuner Card, W/O the remote but still not a bad price. I'm gonna play around with TV connected to my PC, but am also getting it to convert our VHS collection to DVD.

[drfsupercenter]

I am going to bed now, testing out the program feature. If it tapes America's Funniest Home Videos, I'm good

[Furiousg]

Now thats a good choice.
I like to enjoy myself at someone elses expense

[futurex]

why not get a digital card? no offence drfsupercenter, but frankly getting an analog tuner nowadays is like getting a cd/dvd combo drive instead of a dual layer!

[MikeyBK]

why not get a digital card? no offence drfsupercenter, but frankly getting an analog tuner nowadays is like getting a cd/dvd combo drive instead of a dual layer!

Well hows about some of 'your' recommendations.

[futurex]

sure, get digital terrestrial card. it'll do both SD and HD. each brand is essentially the same in hardware, the price is only because of name brand, warranty, remote etc. the software is what matters here.

the most important thing to keep in mind is to get one with BDA drivers. if it has these drivers, it'll be compatible with most apps, the best being webscheduler (freeware). progdvb, also freeware, is quite good.

btw make sure digital tv is being broadcast in your area

edit: found this, it might help http://forums.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=55940

[MikeyBK]

Thanks for the info futurex. I'll look into those.
We do have digital cable in our area but I didn't get the digital box due to the fact that the analogue TV quality is decent enough in our area. I don't really record much TV to keep permanently, just to watch some sporting events I might miss. My main goal with the TV tuner/ video capture card is mostly to back-up our extensive Disney and other VHS tapes so we don't lose them to degradation permanently. We wouldn't be able to capture VHS to digital right? If I really want a TV program on DVD I'd rather buy the commercial copy, but thought it would be nice to record some things on my Media Center software just for kicks as well as for events I might miss.

So would the WinTV PVR-150 be sufficient enough for what I want or do you still feel I should get a digital capture card that could also capture VHS? And do you think MCE software would be sufficient for my TV viewing/recording needs?

One last thing doesn't the WinTV PVR record in digital also?

[futurex]

due to the fact that the analogue TV quality is decent enough in our area

i never want to hear those words again! there is a HUGE difference between analog and digital!!!!!

We wouldn't be able to capture VHS to digital right?

you could do that with an analog or digital card. most digital tuners have svideo input, which is sufficient.

So would the WinTV PVR-150 be sufficient enough for what I want or do you still feel I should get a digital capture card that could also capture VHS?

it will be sufficient for getting VHS to DVD, but i still shudder when i hear the word 'analog'. what size is your display currently? if you are able to put up with any analog picture either your tv is small, or your a calm mellow person

One last thing doesn't the WinTV PVR record in digital also?

digital means the data is stored by a series of 0's and 1's. if something is digital, it can be transferred from one device to another without loss. capturing VHS to DVD is converting analog to digital, and quality is lost in the process. capturing analog tv is the same as capturing VHS. with a DIGITAL card, you're recording to and from digital. no loss of quality at all, and the source is of high quality (usually DVD res and bitrate, but depends where you live)

the winfast peple use the word "digital" a lot in the description of the product. imo its almost false advertising.

[nwg]

The two best digital cards is Hauppauge (pronounced hop hog) Nova-T and the Nebula DigiTV.

I use a Freecom DVB-T USB adapter so I can move it from my PC to my laptop. It is only the size of a memory pen drive.

[drfsupercenter]

Alright, it worked! Let me just say, I have analog cable. So, would it still matter what type of card?

Now, the recording is still fuzzy, I will try to record 3 mins of a show and upload for you guys, it started about 3 seconds into the show so I missed the beginning of the "theme song". But that is because it has to write the file to the disc first... maybe I will try another program.

[moonrocks]

Drf, just to give you an idea of what kind of clarity of image to expect with your 150, I recorded a couple of mpeg2 files from my cable TV, then here's two screen grabs from the mpeg2 file.

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/1397/142hm.jpg

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/4564/054zp1.jpg

If your captures look significantly worse than that then something isn't right.