Re: ShowCentre Review

["Simon McCaughey" <simonmcc@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Mark.

I also said I would give an update when my PCTV Stereo card arrived. Well
it
came on Thursday, and I got it installed. I spent Thursday night, and
Friday
night to about 1-2am trying to get reliable captures from it, but I could
only capture at extremely low resolutions. When the resolution was turned
up
the audio and video were badly out of sync. I tried as many things as I
could think of, there are many FAQs around this problem, from the support
forums it seems extremely common. They suggest defragging your hard disk,
changing PCI slot, update the BIOS  etc. None of these made any difference.
My machine is an Athlon XP1800, 120Gb 7200rpm hdd, 384Mb RAM, so well
inside
the recommended spec.

The PCTV card did integrate fairly well with the showcenter, adding a new
menu option, allowing you to record TV, or watch previously captured
programs. However, these were all out of sync of course.

To summarise - STAY AWAY FROM PCTV CARDS! Go for a hardware encoding card.
(or a DV camcorder :)

Simon



----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark McCall" <lists@xxxxxxx>
To: "Ukha_D@xxxxxxx" <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>;
<ukha@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2004 11:01 AM
Subject: [ukha_d] ShowCentre Review


> Simon McCaughey's review of the ShowCentre is now on-line.
>
> "The idea of the Showcenter is to make media files stored on your
PC
> available for use on your TV in the living room. I don't have (and
can't
> get) broadband, so my selection of media is limited to a few ripped
DVDs,
> loads of MP3's, and about 1000 photos. My main objective was to remove
the
> DVD player and VCR from the living room, so I only have a TV, HiFi,
TiVo
and
> Showcenter."
>
> http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1430.html
>
> M.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
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