Is AverTV much worse than PVR-250 ?
 

I own AverTV card and sometimes I'm using it for some TV captures .
I can't say that quality is is outstanding but it's not bad at all . After Reencoding with TMPG I'm getting very nice quality on my 34" TV .
So my question is : If it worth to invest in PVR-250 card to get perfect quality captures ?
bman

http://www.tv-cards.com/avertv203.php

It seems the card is not shipped with an onboard hardware codec?!

1. That means your CPU will have a lot to do while capturing!
2. PVR-250 comes with a mpeg2 hardware codec :arrow: Less filesize incl. preserved good Quality

Which codec do you use for capturing?


In case of analog!! capturing a PVR-250 will be a good investment - no matter what will come as next.

Bman,
I just picked up an Avertvtuner, deluxe i think, with remote, for an htpc pc that i built. Haven't had time to explore its capturing capabilites.
I did get the fm tuner and tv tuner to work with the remote.
Haven't done any capturing yet, as im not fully done building the apps for the os. My first thought was to use it as a tivo, mostly for viewback (capp sitcoms and whatnot), not necessarily for kvcd'ing.
Quality on the tv display was a lot better and clearer than the actual tv itself (Im using it thru the s-video from the card to the tv)

Im keeping my eye out for a pvr-250, mostly based on kwag's recommendations.

ztr

Thank's for replayes guys!
@ Incredible
I'm capturing with WinDVR as MPEG2 with standard DVD template .
As i sead already quality is nice and after encoding as KVCD ( with some very gentle filtering ) on TV set it looks almost like original .
I own P4 2.4Gh and during the capture this MONSTER handles capture w/out problems of sinc or dropped frames .
It looks like I already have system that allows me to capture with no problems at all .
I didn't tryed to do any encodings during capture to diff Hard disks .
I don't know if it worth to search for more better quality and I even don't know if PVR-250 will give me much better quality :roll: :roll: :roll: ????
@ Elmero
I've read those passionate recommendations from KWAG about PVR-250 and because of that I'm asking this maybe wierd question :wink: :wink: :wink:
If anybody have any comparative info about this two it'll be very helpful for me 8) 8) 8)
Thank's again Incredible and Elmero
bman

To see the quality of a Card's digitizer, ... which is most importand, you can connect a Stand Alone DVD Player via S-Video cable to your capture card.
Use for testing a very good Quality DVD (no noise, excelent mastering!) and capture some minutes using your settings. But be careful ... the input signal will be interlaced and therefore you have to choose the max possible high CBR when capturing to mpeg2, and also to see its clear potential!

And also do another test by capturing the same scene but using a mjpg codec like PicVideo (set to 6-7mb/s- if possible- or a very high quality in Picvideo settings) or better : Choose the Lossless HuffYUV codec.

This for beginning gives you a good impression how your digitzer works.
Cause it won't be that manipulated by "broadcast"-noise, ... received when capturing a TV signal ... and every brodcast comes with his "own" noise so its very difficult to see the digitizers capabilities when testing. ;-)

Maybe after this workout we could see some Pics in here? :wink:


And if the Quality by using the DVD input as reference comes out very good, you don't need to chnage to a PVR 250 ... so everythin in your case depends on the encoding- codec engine.... (well that's my opinion ... cause you can spend those 150 Euros or Dollars on other useful things).

PS: I had a PVR 250 for testing .... it delivers a very good quality ...
But I still stay with my Pinnacle/Miro DC30 using Win2000 WDM Driver which also gives me an excellent quality so I don't have to spend again money incl. no real quality benefit... as I figured out by doing the comparison as mentioned above .... cause I had to send the PVR 250 back. ;-)

But if someone would have to choose his first Capture Card, ... shurely I recommend the PVR 250 as I already said

@ Incredible
Many thank's man !
I really appreciate your info . U are so helpful .
I'll do this Standalone DVD player test as u recommended to me and see what results I'll get . I'll inform u about them in here as soon as I'll finish tests . :D :D :D
bman