Good inexpensive TV card?
- Thread starter Mize
- Start date
If the card should also be used as a VCR, you _have_ to get Hauppauge or the upcoming ATI product. I recommend WinTV PVR250, it's as good as any stand-alone HD-recorder. Should be within the price range.
If it's for watching only, any card will do it. Terratec Cinrgy400 series is a good option price/performance-wise with regularly updated drivers and a nice remote.
If it's for watching only, any card will do it. Terratec Cinrgy400 series is a good option price/performance-wise with regularly updated drivers and a nice remote.
I'll second a recomend for Hauppauge as about the best TV card around, I still love my Hauppauge above all others!
Second would probably be the TV-wonderVE. If you don't mind mono sound it's pretty sweet on XP with D-scaler, and you can find 'em for $20us.
Second would probably be the TV-wonderVE. If you don't mind mono sound it's pretty sweet on XP with D-scaler, and you can find 'em for $20us.
I'd wait for ATi's new chip to be available on a large scale, that one seems to be the superior alternative.
I have an older Hauppauge card (Brooktree-based chipset), and that one never worked 100% correctly, especially with capturing. Always some bullshit incompatibility with every program I tried. One program can't find any TV channels, the next won't capture any video, the third captures video but no sound, the fourth crashes outright etc. Always something that prevents it from working properly. Sh!tty drivers, I'd say. Also, the video picture is pretty washed-out too, or if not washed-out it becomes too dark. There isn't any real choice inbetween.
Hauppauge support is crap too, they never answered any of my emails.
I have an older Hauppauge card (Brooktree-based chipset), and that one never worked 100% correctly, especially with capturing. Always some bullshit incompatibility with every program I tried. One program can't find any TV channels, the next won't capture any video, the third captures video but no sound, the fourth crashes outright etc. Always something that prevents it from working properly. Sh!tty drivers, I'd say. Also, the video picture is pretty washed-out too, or if not washed-out it becomes too dark. There isn't any real choice inbetween.
Hauppauge support is crap too, they never answered any of my emails.
The 848 perchance? "TView99" or some such?Guden Oden said:
If so I think I can help ya with the software, I had an absolute dilly of a time setting it up in Dscaler but it was worth it once I got it working.
I agree with guden to an extent, I have a hauppauge 250 and it just didn't not work as easily as I think things like this should, a pain to get everything workiing right, it has the video offset too so the bottom 1/20th of the input signal appears on the top, the sound was screwy as well.
PVR150 is also good and has the same chipset AFAIK. Here's the link for comparison.
As for problems, I know of no TV-Card _without_ any problems. It's mostly a config/driver issue. Anyway, Hauppauge are the best TV-cards out there and produce less problems than any other brand. You can do nothing wrong.
Edit:
Another good card would be Hollywood@home from Gainward. It's got great picture quality(Philips SAA71xx chip) and also a HW-MPEG2 encoder and should be even cheaper.
As for problems, I know of no TV-Card _without_ any problems. It's mostly a config/driver issue. Anyway, Hauppauge are the best TV-cards out there and produce less problems than any other brand. You can do nothing wrong.
Edit:
Another good card would be Hollywood@home from Gainward. It's got great picture quality(Philips SAA71xx chip) and also a HW-MPEG2 encoder and should be even cheaper.
