What software do you guys use just for watching TV?

[CiViC]

Its been a long time since i've used a tv tuner, and I just recently installed my old Pinnacle PCTV PRo in my sister's computer (she'll be using it when her roomate wants to watch something else on their tv set). The thing is, i'm not sure what software I should be recommending to her..there's always virtualdub, but i don't think that would suit her use.

[avih]

dscaler (http://deinterlace.sf.net) is about the only reasonable choice, and u'll get the best deinterlaced real-time tv u've ever seen.

[BruceL]

I stopped using DScaler after it wiped the flash memory clean on my Leadtek TV card. Lucky for me they were willing to replace it. I posted more than once on Dscaler's forums and the posts mysteriously disappeared. I now use the latest Leadtek software and it is much improved from when it first came out. Also, the new drivers seem to work real good with VirtualVCR for doing captures. My web browsing computer has an older ATI AIW Radeon AGP card and an ATI TV Wonder PCI card working with MMC 8.9 using the latest drivers. MulTView is pretty cool. You can watch PIP or two TV windows and browse the web. The software is a little buggy but that might be due to the age of the cards.

[joshyg2]

dscaler has to be the best program for viewing tv on a progressive monitor.

i have never had any problems with it.
im using a Hauppauge WinTV NICAM Stereo card.

[jigc]

i bought a generic BT878 tv card, the image quality was simply un-acceptable with original driver and software.

when i upgraded to xp, i found dscaler. it "revived" it after i put it aside for 2 years.

then i upgraded to a faster system, it improved it again! the IQ is superb!

now, i'm using iuvcr for scheduled recording. it works when the pc resumes from s3 or hibernation mode. i record with vme9 at 85% (quality mode).

[silenceboy]

Try WinDVD Recorder.
It can play and recorder TV program.

[timecop]

i gotta agree, dscaler owns.
the recently released stable build supports both 878 and cx23xxx chips, which hopefully fixed "reboot on exit" problem I had with dscaler last time I used beta cx23xxx support.

[ADLANCAS]

and...the winner is... DScaler !!

[jigc]

Originally posted by BruceL
I stopped using DScaler after it wiped the flash memory clean on my Leadtek TV card. Lucky for me they were willing to replace it. I posted more than once on Dscaler's forums and the posts mysteriously disappeared.


bruceL,

are u using ver4.1.9??

the author knows an issue of ver4.1.9, it's discussed here:

http://www.dscaler.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2985&start=0

but most reported affected card are "Msi tv@nywhere Master".

so, be warned for others...

[BruceL]

@jigc
I stopped using at 4.1.8 after realizing Dscaler was what corrupted the flash memory. I saw 4.1.9 but the author even stated it was not very well tested. I didn't want to take another chance wiping out my replacement card. I saw no indication the problem I was experiencing has been resolved. I am currently getting very good results capturing with Leadtek's latest drivers and VirtualVCR. VVCRS2 scheduler is an added bonus and runs reliably on my system.

[avih]

BruceL, did u try to use dscaler to watch tv or to capture? capture is very experimental, and there are other tools, like vdub. but for watching, imho dscaler is the best.

i do agree that if indeed dscaler flashed your firmware, it's very annoying, and should be addressed in the highest priority. although i must admit it's the 1st time i hear such complaints about dscaler.


i've read through the whole thread posted here, and i see that the devs indeed think they modify the eeprom. i hope they'll be able to find a way to restore it for the users. i also saw they bought one of those cards to test it more carefully. big oops. unfortunately, sh*t happens :(

[BruceL]

@avih

I only used for watching TV. I agree, the picture quality can not be beat. I had been using VDub Sync for capture. I now use VirtualVCR with VVCRS2 Scheduler and get terrific results. I agree S**t happens, I just wish it was not me for this one as I did like DScaler.

[jigc]

yesterday, i tried christv 3.6 (the lastest version).

it can use vmr9, dscaler interlacing plug-in, scheduling recording as well.

it's not stable (crashed a lot for my machine), but the PQ is good.

[BruceL]

@jigc
I had the same experience with a couple of ChrisTV versions. Did not run stable at all. Tried "Borg" a couple of times and could not even get it running.

[chemmajik]

Because it allows not just the best viewing pleasure or scaling it allows higher resolution still screen captures in realtime, Its doing live video timeshifting for some elites(rich). Thats recording on one card & viewing on another(or pausing)...

[reepa]

Hauppauge's WinTV :P I can't get sound out of DScaler. There must be something I must configure properly. Btw DScaler allows changins some cx23881 settings like adaptive comb filter treshold etc. I changed it and got a big improvement in horizontal resolution but a lot of dot crawl appeared on the picture. Still, it's nice to see what kinds of things you can configure.

For capturing I use iuVCR as it supports WDM and segmented capture.

[ppera2]

I usually use PCTV Vision. It's not the best, and has big CPU load, but I'm lazy to bother with DScaler.
Unlike many others I have good experiences with PCTV's capturing.

[bat_stefo]

what do you guys say about Fly2000 TV. I haven't seen anything about it in this forum. Any thougths???

[jggimi]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Search for Fly 2000 with a space between the keywords. You'll find 18 threads (including this one, now).

[joshyg2]

reepa you should be getting sound when using dscaler, i to own a Hauppauge WinTV, here are my settings:

Card: Standard BT878 / Hauppauge BT878

Tuner: Temic 4009 FR5 [PAL B/G] + FM

Audio Input: Stereo

Audio Channel: Stereo and Automatic Stereo Adjustment

Audio Standard: Detect per channel

[emazur]

2 free software programs that you can use besides dscaler but still get deinterlacing are:

winamp tv (http://www.brics.dk/~barnie/WinampTV/)
aiwplayer (http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiwplayer/index.htm)