OT: Anyone got a WinTV-USB?

[CarZee]

I'm thinking of getting one of these for

(a) the world cup
(b) getting clips of TV/Video/PS2 onto my PC/the internet
(C) streaming TV across my network

Anyone have any experience they'd care to share?

In particular, I'm thinking about the PVR version whose primary advantages seem to be that it will record at twice the resolution (full screen TV) and will produce MPEG2 files. It seems difficult to justify the extra hundred quid for these benefits though..

Oh and I use Windows 2000 across the board - its essential that it works okay with my OS.

[ultimajohn]

CarZee - I've recently installed one of these at a clients so that the staff can watch the WC via a projector onto the wall. It was the std version. O/S was W2K. There are two virtual operating desks and the drivers on the CD. Works a treat with a good (not perfect) image at about 4 x 5 feet on the wall.

[ultimajohn]

ps. The std version has video S and sound jacks,. Instructions cover image capture but I didn't try it. See no reason why it would not work though

[JonRB]

Aidan - I have a friend who is working on a product that will knock the spots off the WinTV cards. Trouble is its only in early beta at the moment.

[Marshy]

JonRB, I'm very interested. I have a WinTV PCI card and the hardware seems good, but the drivers are dreadful and despite the card having hardware MPEG compression, I can't get entirely smooth video out of it. The higher the processor speed the smoother it gets, but even on a 1GHz P3, it's not perfect.

If testers are needed...

[CarZee]

I take it you have the PVR version then, Marshy ? (Knew I could count on you to know about toys )

[JonRB]

quote:the hardware seems good, but the drivers are dreadful

Ah well, that's the thing. In fact, that was one of the business reasons for entering the market.
I can't vouch for the hardware on these new cards, since I haven't seen them yet. However, the guy working on the drivers and software is a friend and ex-colleague and he really knows his stuff. If he's involved, then there will be no complaints on drivers and software.
I've been promised a beta sometime in June, so I'll let you know.

Regards
Jon

>> Edited by JonRB on Tuesday 30th April 21:25

[Marshy]

quote:
I take it you have the PVR version then, Marshy ? (Knew I could count on you to know about toys )

Yes, but the PCI card version, not the USB one. I already have TiVo too, so haven't actually tried any of the PVR functionality. I only wanted it for the MPEG compressor so I could back stuff up onto VCD off the TiVo.

The MPEG compressor itself is good (i.e. when it doesn't get tripped up by the rest of the PC, the quality is top notch) but as I said, the software is rocky IMHO. Relies on being able to grab its own IRQ, which in these days of ACPI and other peripherals, is nigh on impossible to guarantee. Haupauge suggested I turn ACPI off, and my PC hasn't been the same since. Buggers. Basically, the PCI version assumes no other hardware in your PC.

The USB version won't manage bitrates as high as the PCI version (MPEG 2 @ 6Mbits/s versus 12 for the PCI card) but might not suffer the same issues I've had.

[CarZee]

right... well I'm pretty set on USB because of portability between machines, so if the bitrate is halved (I know the limits of USB & that was one concern I had..) it doesn't sound to me like the PVR version is worth the extra right now...

Cheers guys..

[go-go]

Question for Marshy.

Have you got in the box a remote control and cables ? Tuesday i was ready to get one but someone, very gently, said: don't pick this, the box is empty, there's only interface inside. When opened sealed box, surprise, there was only interface inside. In doubt, and dissapointed, refused to pick it then. Dealer was not able to give me an explanation.

It was WinTV FM, Hauppage's site says that there should be a remote.

Thanks

>> Edited by go-go on Thursday 2nd May 09:36

[Marshy]

Yes, the PVR PCI card comes with a remote and an infra-red receiver which plugs into the card.

[zertec]

quote:
right... well I'm pretty set on USB because of portability between machines, so if the bitrate is halved (I know the limits of USB & that was one concern I had..) it doesn't sound to me like the PVR version is worth the extra right now...

Cheers guys..

What about USB 2?

[CarZee]

That would address the USB blandwidth issue, but

i) Don't have it on any of my PCs - whilst a PCI card will fix this for my desktop machines, most of my machines are laptops.. hence the primacy of USB connection.

ii) No USB2 TV Cards yet AFAIK.

[JohnLow]

If you had one and a recordable DVD drive could you connect them together and record TV onto DVD?

[go-go]

Grrr, damn distributor, all boxes are defective.

Thanx