Good Alternatives to the Hauppauge PVR-250?

[WesM63]

Hey Guys,
I'm looking for a good alternative to the PVR-250. I know its the best, but I need to cut some costs on my new PVR/HTPC.

I have a ATX board and CPU, I want a mATX board with onboard video. I allready have a AIW 7500, but thought about selling the board and 7500 in favor of a mATX board and decent TV tuner card.


I pulled up Neweggs refurbs and I get a "Sabrent TV Tuner Video Caputer Card w/Remote" for $33. Are these any good?

What are some good less pricey alternatives to the PVR-250?

[dicki]

i'm guessing it doesn't do the hardware mpeg 2 capture which is the real advantadge to the hauppage pvr range...

if your system is man enough for it you can try doing compression on the fly but you will risk dropping frames or many good HTPC programs allow you to do post processing on any recorded files to bring the size down

dicki

[Player0]

The biggest issue with Capture cards is comptability. You WANT to be able to run any PVR software you want (SageTV is by far the best).

I suggest figguring out your software first, and then looking at the compatibility list for it.

http://www.sage.tv/requirements.html?sageSub=tv


Youll see that the Sabrent is not listed (although it maybe similar to something else).

Having the onboard MPEG2 is very nice. You'll also want a good deinterlacing playback codec for MPEG2s or youll get wavies on your TV

[illmatik]

I would buy one of those happauge blackbird cards which is pretty cheap and works w/ sage, beyond, and mce2k5

[dfrancis]

The biggest issue with Capture cards is comptability. You WANT to be able to run any PVR software you want (SageTV is by far the best).

http://www.sage.tv/requirements.html?sageSub=tv


My god, you've changed your tune,lol. It's right of course, sagetv is just so simple to use, and the quality is excellent, try a second hand pvr-250, they are always on ebay?

[Player0]

I honestly don't think I've changed anything lol. I've prefered the Hauppage since I got it, although I might have been hesitant to let go of my AIWs before that ;)