Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 13:05:10 -0500
From: Reggie
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: Hauppauge cards versus All-in-Wonder cards

Never used the ATI card but I did just purchase the Hauppauge PVR-250
card (Compusa deal last week).  I am into video recording and capture.  I
am blown away by the Hauppauge card.  I tried the low end Hauppauge on a
deal a while back and had configuration problems so I returned it.  But
this PVR-250 is awesome.


Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:07:08 -0600
From: Justin
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: AIW cards

I am honestly wondering what it is that you have heard bad about the AIW
cards.  I am on my second one, and I love both of them.  I have had no
problems with either of the cards recording.  (Playing back the files
from ATI’s file player is another story, though so I don’t
usually record in their proprietary format.)  I have recorded fine at
various levels including straight to MPEG2 which works quite well as the
card has onboard MPEG2 encoding/decoding.  The remote also works
seamlessly, although I do admit that I notice a slight drop in framerate
when using the timeshifting functions.  Other than that, I have no
complaints what so every with my cards.  The included Guide+ software
also works quite well with the software.

I honestly don’t know what more the Hauppauge cards could offer
that my AIW cards do not.

We are all, of course, entitled to our opinions.  But, in this case I
feel that yours is wrong.  ;)


Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:14:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Hot Deals Maniac
To: Justin
Subject: Re: AIW cards

Specifically, I heard that the All-in-Wonder cards do very well when all 
they are doing is TV viewing.  If you do *anything* else while the card is 
recording live TV, such as playing a 3D game, watching a DVD movie, 
burning a CD, etc., then the video will hiccup or skip considerably.  
Again, if all you are doing is watching TV, it works great.  But the fact 
is people want to record television shows while they are doing something 
else.

With my Hauppauge-250 card, I see that my Snapstream software records TV 
shows at 7054 kbps mpeg2 encoding rate, a very high rate that produces 30 
min of TV as 1.6 GB, uses under 10% of CPU on my 2.6 GHz Celeron computer.  
I have played 3D games (GTA Vice City), burnt CD's, and played DVD movies 
all while my Hauppauge card records TV shows, all without me even 
noticing.

Reports are numerous that if you do anything other than watch the live TV,
even simple things like surf the web, you will have skips and hiccups with
your recordings.  Have you not found this to be the case with your AIW 
card?


Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 03:09:07 -0500 (EST)
From: L. P.
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: AIW & Hauppage user

My first TV tuner card was AIW. Loved it. When I upgraded from Win 98 to
XP, however, the recording capabilities ceased to work, it would
frequently freeze after it had been on for the first 10 minutes and it
would never shut down properly. The good thing about the card though was
the fact that it delivered a very direct signal. I hooked up my VCR and
Playstation to the card and everything was responsive. From channels 2
to 78 in under a minute and I could see flickers of what was on. Minor
detail, but AIW's software has a cleaner, more usable UI.

Now I purchased the Hauppage PVR-250 card that was a Hot Deal. It never
freezes, records seamlessly and shuts down like any good program should.
However, this card does not deliver a direct signal. It's actually about
a half a second behind (yes, I'm in "Live TV" mode). Signal processing,
I assume. This delay makes changing the channels on the VCR a
painstakingly slow process and playing a video game when your video is
half a second behind your controller? Forget about it. Luckily, the
Hauappage comes with its own remote, which is about a quarter of a
second faster than using the VCR. It's still slow to change channels,
but kind of bearable. Unfortunately, this means taking my VCR out of
the loop. No more converting VHS to MPEG unless I split the wire. Oh, I
even tried using the S-Video, thinking that might kill the delay. Nope
- it's all because of the card itself. One more remote control gripe -
the TV program has to be active to change channels when before I was
using my VCR and it had nothing to do with the computer. Minor, but I
watch TV windowed in the corner of my desktop while doing many other
things.

Ultimately, I feel like I ended up even by switching cards. I use my
Playstation quite a bit, so that hurt, and taking an extra minute to
scan through channels is annoying. But the fact that I don't have to
pray that the program freezes is nice and the ability to record shows
is welcomed.

If I have to reccommend a card, I would choose the Hauppage for the
majority.... because who needs to scan through every channel in under
a minute and play video games on their computer besides a 20-year old
geek? :)