Phil’s Diary - [Blog @ http://www.philsdiary.net/]
It’s pay day tomorrow so I’m already investigating ways to separate me and my money.
First up is a PVR (Personal Video Recorder). For a while now, with a copy of DigiGuide and some software you’ve been able to use your computer as a PVR, allowing digital recording and time-shifting among other things (like a TiVo, which I can’t seem to find on sale in the UK at the moment).
Anyhow, this has always interested me (enough to consider a DVD recorder which can do the same). So I had a poke around today and realised the first obstacle was a TV card. Problem is that the best of these I’ve seen (the Hauppage ones) aren’t particular cheap, and aren’t particularly reliable. The one experience I’ve had with one had it not working. Other’s I’ve read about have had similar problems.
This leads to a bit of a problem, as you need something like this to make it all work.
Anyhow, the thoughts quickly diminished from there, as I’m not really prepared to pay 50quid for a card that starts my PC crashing, and doesn’t really give a particularly good picture.
The last thought on this I had was that I really don’t want to watch TV in front of my PC. After all I’ve not a lovely big wide-screen telly to do that with. So I’d need some sort of TV out, which I do have on an older graphics card. Problem with that is that the output picture was never particularly good.
All in all I think I’ll avoid it until I’ve got more money lying around.
On a side note, Hauppage seem to have one of the worst websites I’ve seen in ages, there’s so little product detail there it’s not funny. Even the “specification” page is rather vague. For example, what resolution will the cards grab at? Never managed to find and answer to that. Which isn’t too helpful.
Posted by Phil on May 27, 2003 08:15 PM | Categories: Thoughts
Have a read through the forums at http://www.digiguide.com - there's lots and lots on PVR there, especially their own plans to build it right into DigiGuide.
You're right about TV out cards and Hauppage - no one I've seen has done any reviews on picture quality, no one even bothers saying anything other than 'tv out capable' and that's it.
Posted by: Chris at May 29, 2003 12:42 PM