Hauppauge TV Cards

[FIHW]

Hi, after doing a little searching on www.ebuyer.com I found two TV cards that seemed to be at a good level of price/performance. These two cards are:

Hauppauge WinTV-PCI FM / TV Tuner / Capture C&S Video PCI / FM Radio + Remote Control + Nicam.

Hauppauge WinTV-Primio FM Capture Card PCI TV + Radio + Teletext + Remote + Nicam

The first card is being sold for £52.54 (Inc VAT)
The second card is being sold for £48.17 (Inc VAT)

The first card captures in stereo, but the second doesn't. Would the sound quality be noticeably different between the two cards?

Also, do you think that this slight difference in price would mean that there would also be a slight difference in video capture quality?

Also, would you recommend these cards, or should I go for a cheaper Hauppauge card?

Thanks

[2ZOD.COM]

Both of those capture cards are based off the same chipset (Connexant or Brooktree bt8x8) so the capture quality will probably be identical.

The obvious difference in sound quality, is one will capture mono sound (sounds coming out of one speaker), and one will capture stereo sound. (2 speakers)

I personally would rather have a card with an s-video input, and from reading on the hauppauge site and ebuyer it doesn't look like either of them have s-video inputs. I don't know if you would even use S-Video, so if you aren't, then I would say they're fine for you.

[Camd00d]

Spend a little more, get the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. It captures directly to MPEG and is a much better card.

[Arachnotron]

The modern versions of the Hauppauge WinTV range mostly use Conexant CX2388x chips They have model numbers starting with 34

Older models are still around using fusion 878a chips

The primio does indeed lack an s-video input and only has a composite in. Not good.

Stereo support only matters for TV. When recording from tape, you use your soundcard directly, and that is stereo.

The CX23881 is the successor to the BT878 and has better specs on paper. But there is more software, tweak utils and alternative drivers around for the BT878.

Which one is best for you depends on what your purpose is.

[FIHW]

My main plan is to cap directly from a composite cable (TV), would you recommend buying either of these cards, or should I go for something else?

[FIHW]

Also - What is the difference between the WinTV PVR 250 & the WinTV PVR 350?

[Arachnotron]

My main plan is to cap directly from a composite cable (TV), would you recommend buying either of these cards, or should I go for something else?
If your goal is capturing TV I would choose the Hauppauge WinTV-PCI FM. It has more options, and a stereo TV tuner.

By the way, composite is for external video sources like VCR's, not for TV. TV is captured from an on-board tuner which needs an antenna of-course.

For mor info on pvr cards, trythis (http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/htpc.html) link.

[FIHW]

Thanks for the info, why is there such a difference in price between the WinTV-PCI FM and the PVR 350? (Is there such a huge difference in capture quality, or is it because it supports s-video)?

[Arachnotron]

No, Both support s-video in. But the PVR has also s-video out (which is not that usefull since most videocards can do the same nowadays.)

But the big difference is hardware MPEG-2 encoding, which allows you to do MPEG2 encoding at high bitrates on the fly.

If you want that or need that depends again on the quality you want, the amount of time (and disk space) you have etc. etc.

Personally, I like to record with lossless compression and encode afterwards, but this takes a lot of diskspace and time. If the PVR's compression is good enough for you that is fine.

[FIHW]

Ok, so will the quality that the WinTV-PCI FM and the PVR 350 capture at be the same?

[Arachnotron]

I don't own a PVR so I cannot compare it. But the PVR series are much more expensive.

But in general that depends on what you are doing. They are completely different cards with different advantages and disadvantages. Quality is a very subjective term.

[FIHW]

Ok, Thanks for the info