Re: DIY TIVO?

[david_guest@xxxxxxx]

--- In ukha_d@y..., "Ian Lowe" <ian@w...> wrote:
> >I have 3 x ATI all in wonder 128 pros and their an excellent card,
BUT they
> >lack decent sw and mpeg 2 encoding hw to be taken seriously as a
digital
> vcr
> >IMO. I too have been eyeing up the RADEON as this seems to offer
everything
> >on a plate, yet to see one in the flesh though.
>
> Paul
>
> The "MPEG Encoding Hardware" is non existant! My biggest
gripe with
AIWs is
> that they do not perform as ATI claim. The RADEON AIW uses exactly
the same
> capture chip (The Rage Theatre Chipset) as the AIW128Pro-32.
>
> This performs identically (According to my benchmarks) as the older
> Brooktree based AIW128-16, it just looks nicer (better colour,
better white
> balance)
>
> I find that with a PIII800EB, and my AIW32 I can encode directly to
DivX
> using virtualdub. I use the fast motion codec, with the bitrate set
at
> 1200bps, and encode the sound as straight PCM at Cd Quality (no
> recompression)
>
> At this level, I find that I can capture an hour of very watchable
(VHS
> quality, basically) video in about 940Mb. Given that my capture PC
has a
> 27Gb disk, you can do the maths. I don't have a timer feature, but
I have
> enough diskspace that I can just record the whole day/night then
chop out
> the bit I want using VirtualDub.
>
> Ian.

You may want to consider:
Hauupauge WinTV-PVR http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/html/WinTV-PVR.htm
Matrox G450-eTV
http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/marv_g450_etv/features.cfm
Both of these have hardware MPEG 2 encoding.
I am building a Tivo type system at the moment and have a Hauppauge
TV card and Showshifter but am finding it unstable. I looked at the
Radion AIW thinking it did hardware MPEG and was shocked when I found
it didn't.

David