Hauppage PVR - A Reasonable Alternative? 62
"I have the following problems with Hauppage's software:
- When I set the "pause buffer" to 5GB, it doesn't work properly after 1 hour (1GB per hour, set at coarsest resolution). It works fine at 1GB, the default setting.
- There is a +10 second button, but it is not configurable. I would also like a +30 second button and +2 minute button.
- Sometimes, when using the +10 second button, it freezes for awhile.
Does anyone else out there have this hardware, and have reproduced these problems? I'm using Windows XP and have the PVR USB version of the hardware. I tried contacting Hauppage technical support, and they said that they may someday attempt to reproduce and fix the bug, if they feel like it. Yes, I downloaded the latest driver and software from their website.
Except for those problems, I'm really satisfied with the hardware. I recommend it to anyone considering a Tivo. I just wish Hauppage tech support would fix the obvious reproducible bugs. They are obviously software flaws, and not hardware flaws, so I'm looking for alternate drivers."
Where did you get the idea...? (Score:4, Interesting)
The box functions just fine without it. You just lose the ability to schedule recordings based on that program guide data.
And just like you would with a PC-based PVR, you have the ability to roll your own aftermarket program data solution and feed it to the PVR for use, should Tivo go under. However, it's the program guide data that keeps Tivo in business. And as one of, if not the most successful embedded Linux product ever to make it to market, it's in the community's best interest to support Tivo. That includes paying for the subscription that keeps the company alive.
Re:More anti-FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
That's nice, but I can think of two problems:
1. The people with the backdoors would probably be legally enjoined from releasing them if TiVo were to die, say, by a bankruptcy court. If you were a creditor that was going to own the remnants of TiVo, wouldn't you want control of the boxes? There's no revenue without that control.
2. TiVo could be taken over by a more rapacious company, which could, say, triple the subscription fees. (The "lifetime" subscription isn't an option, since it's only for the lifetime of the box--deceptive advertising, IMHO.) There is no danger of this with a non subscription-based solution like the Hauppage PVR.
I have been hesitant to buy a PVR because I don't watch much TV to begin with, and because I don't want to become a lifetime cash cow for one of these companies, only to have them remove features (30 second skip, for example) and force updates (like the one that removed the 30 second skip) at their whim. They have a right to use that business model, so long as they're honest about it--I'm just not interested myself.
Like the idea of a USB PVR? (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing about these products that concern me is that they are USB based-- I suspect that the MPEG2 image quality will not be that nice.
I'm wondering if there's a market for a good quality computer based PVR. One that encodes in real time to an advanced format (say MPEG4) from a high quality image stream.
This would result in a much better recording ratio-- more hours to a gigabyte and better video quality. (And it can be done in real time in software on good hardware)
The problem with people making PVRs in the past has been lack of acces to hardware drivers for All In Wonder cards, etc. This seems to be the insurmountable problem so far. (Though I think I have a great solution.)
So, what do you think? Know of any open source projects trying to do this?
If my solution works, it will result in better video quality than you get from Tivo or the USB product in this article, both because its compressed in MPEG4 rather than MPEG2, and because the source signal is much better . (At least in the USB case, the advantages over TIVO would be codec choice and flexibility of being an open platform-- you can easily move video in and out, etc.)
Would such a product be valuable to you? Woudl you buy it? You'd probably be spending about as much as to buy a TIVO for the hardware & software solution I'm thinking of-- but your capacity, ability to move the files around, ability to share the video to other TVs, etc, would be greatly improved.
Or put another way, my hypothesis is that the TIVO solution is pretty good- decent quality, all in one box, fits like a VCR and controlled by remote. The PC solutions have not been so good- bad Windows software, or lack of access to drivers or poor shovelware to bundle with the cards. So, I think a solution that provides the advantages of using your PC to do the recording, with better format, and high quality imaging (As well as the other features of Tivo- speculative recording, IR control, etc.) is a market opportunity... Am I right?
I got one and have had a few issues... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had a few problems with it. First, when recording in mpeg-2 mode, if I play it in other mpeg viewers, the aspect ratio is opposite, like 480x640 instead of 640x480.
If I cap to VCD (mpeg1) format, it's fine. But if I use any mpeg editing tools like Power Director, the audio and video get out of sync. Very annoying. Hauppauge has a "cuts only" mpeg editor on their site, but it's not the best. While the a/v stay in sync, for some reason, the frames where I make the cuts get off sometimes. So if I'm real careful to cut at the start and end of commercials, sometimes I'll get the first 5-10 seconds of a commercial and then miss the first 5-10 seconds of the show after it.
Overall, not real happy. I'm kinda of wishing I got a standard WDM capable capture card and used software-based encoding...
The other thing that ticked me off is I recently bought a dvd iMac and expected to be able to cap in mpeg2 on my PC, transfer to the mac and write out to the mac's DVD-R drive, but the damn iDVD software that comes with the iMac will only work with DV or quicktime movies (and qt pro won't import mpeg-2)
I just can't win it seems...