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Hauppauge still hasn't moved from their stance of being completely unwilling to write functional x64 drivers for the WinTV series of cards. They still insist the cards won't work with x64 systems with more than 4GB of memory. Until my Hauppauge card works without me having to gut myself of more than 80% of its memory, they can go die in a fire.

Component and composite outputs on the back of every descrambler out there will spit it out in standard definition. You can't record HD signals out of them -- many won't even downgrade the signal, it'll just be dead. Getting high definition on any of those requires an HDMI hookup, which is encrypted, and therefore "tunerless" VCRs and DVD burners can't be used. Even getting signals OTA (not scrambled) doesn't do you much good because the tuners are usually integrated into the television. I haven't tuners being sold separately with HD outputs that can be sent to any COTS recording equipment. This is intentional, purposeful, and frankly conspiratorial on the part of the manufacturers.

Piracy is the only way the market for HD video recordings will survive.

Funny thing is, you can record high-def quite easily, you just need to purchase two legal products.

First, you buy a Hauppage HD-PVR, about the only consumer-level high-def recording box that handles up to 1080i via component inputs. Hey look, Myth supports it!

Now, for pesky HDMI... you buy a HD Fury 2, which takes HDMI (including HDCP!) and converts it to either RGB or Component outputs, and while it handles 1080p, the HD-PVR only has 1080i.

Now you have a high-def PVR solution, MythTV compatible.

Alternate methods is if your cablebox supports Firewire, and can output the high-def content over it (I've seen 'em where the SD content is output over Firewire, but the HD content isn't), but most satellite boxes don't have this, unfortunately.

Hauppage has a $99 USB tuner- just add a computer to your setup.

And replying to myself- I noticed Hauppage has a USB ATSC tuner at that $99 price point that will allow me to convert my laptop if I want.

Hauppage Win-PVR 350

Hauppage Media MVP

SnapStream Beyond TV

Hauppage Win-PVR 350

Hauppage Media MVP

SnapStream Beyond TV

Used by Hauppage for all you media mvp users. The Wind River side of things is reliable, the windows service side of things is not so good.

Is what me and my brother in law are using. Check it out here: http://www.hauppage.com/pages/products/data_mediam vp.html It streams MP3's, uses m3u playlists generated from my favorite MP3 software, shows pictures on the TV, and works pretty well. My favorite part is that they release beta software on a regular basis, so I'm constantly getting new features like the ability to listen to internet radio. TT

They have USB TV tuners. I have their PCI PVR, the USB one must be pretty good as well.

http://www.hauppage.com/pages/prods_usbs.html

Buy a little TV capture card from Hauppage with FM capability like this one. Plug it into your linux box and use xawtv's streamer application to record Loveline every night (or whatever your favorite radio show is). Then use lame to convert that to MP3.

Then, listen at work. I've been doing this for years. Its not great for productivity, but it keeps you from getting bored and getting even more off task.

Yet another place where linux rules for simplicity and functionality! The box doing this is a PII/333MHz, which also records video (a la Tivo).

Also, you can tune into Shoutcast's various comedy channels.

I'd recommend Hauppage over ATI's AIW or Tv Wonder

If you couple this with the WinTV-250btv/BeynondTV bundle for $139 (often on sale for $129) from SnapStream SnapStream Store, you've got quite a nice little setup for under $250 that supports one television, and numerous computers doing playback.....

M$ is just trying to get people to pay more for a new OS ("XP MCE").

Why give another $1500 to the M$ monopoly?--all I need is my Hauppage TV card and my Streamzap remote.

...why not make use of a USB hub and a Hauppage WinTV-USB? You should be able to attach to multiple devices (/dev/video0, /dev/video1, etc.), I just don't know what kind of quality you can expect nor if there are Linux drivers available for it (yet).

WinTV-HD. $399.00 direct from them.

www.hauppage.com

Short description is here

Well hauppage have a free plugin to record to MPEG-1 on this page. Date is Jan 2001 which is after the patent was filed though im pretty sure there were pre-release versions available for a while. Anyone know for sure? Also in this version you have to watch the channel you record but they mention that as a planned feature. Would be interesting to see if the first version was available before the patent was filed.

Well hauppage have a free plugin to record to MPEG-1 on this page. Date is Jan 2001 which is after the patent was filed though im pretty sure there were pre-release versions available for a while. Anyone know for sure? Also in this version you have to watch the channel you record but they mention that as a planned feature. Would be interesting to see if the first version was available before the patent was filed.

As with all other similar solutions (ShowShifter, Telemman HiPix, Hauppage WinTV PVR & HD, AccessDTV, etc), what will make or break this product is the level of integration, and the quality of the SW. So far, the integration with existing A/V equipment has been rather poor. The Destination had to use expensive Computer-IR out transceivers to control your cable/satellite box and VCR, plus the input remote (and I think they never got the SW quite right), and most solutions right now don't offer any kind of IR control integration.

Currently, SnapStream is working on adding more support for this type of integration. John Vanderbeck is leading an Open Source project (IRTuner) to support multiple IR out transcievers. He has written a driver to use the ActiSys 200L (~$65) from SnapStream. He is working on adding support for the RedRat2, and future candidates are the CiR and LIRC. We are also looking into integrating with Girder, making the interface available to other applications beside SnapStream, and adding more functionality and in general, making it easier to turn your PC into a real A/V integration tool...

The best place I've found for information on the current state of this "Borg PC" is the AVSForum HTPC board. Some of the forum members have customized their PCs to a degree that comes pretty close. They aren't an every user, dumb down PC, but some come pretty close at being user friendly... The problem remains being the cost. The Gateway Destination came pretty close to bringing it all togheter, but it was underpowered, and very few people would pay for it (so it was discontinued)...

Some manufacturers are starting to come around and to provide automation features, that enable some customization (like ATI, which now has an API for remotes). Girder seems to be a great hub for programmability features, where several Open Source projects converge in controlling the HTPC.

A few general comments: * 560 GB of storage is almost affordable for personal use. Just use 8 80 GB HD with a RAID 5 controller (like the 3Ware 6800). It'd cost ~$2300, which isn't cheap, but you'd have plenty of storage, and you even get some redundancy...

* UltimateTV and the XBox are going this way. The XBox will be HDTV compatible, and future generations might include a HDTV tuner. And then using USB you might get additional funcitonality. A merging of UTB and XBox might also be possible. Probably the biggest objection would be that this is a MS solution...

* There at at least 3 HDTV PC Tuner cards available (Telemann HiPix, Hauppage WinTV-HD, and AccessDTV). All the manufacturers are working into building digital PVR functions into their products, which will make HDTV tuners a Tivo alternative (at least for OTA broadcasts).

* SnapStream is working to provide PVR features on your PC (there was another, but I don't have a name handy), and the company is very open to user feedback and open source development (as the IRTuner Project shows).

* Don't forget PDA's and mobile multimedia devices. As more multimedia is available, the box will make it accesible on the go, so you can take movies with you when you commute, or access music from anywhere in your house (using 802.11b) w/o requiring a PC or a full blown device, just your PDA. SnapStream recognizes the potential of PDAs, and is offering PocketPVS so you can transcode video and play it back on your PPC.

HDTV might be the catalyst that pushes the HTPC out of obscurity, and that creates the borg box. With every US household having to replace their TV in the next few years, more will start to consider cheap HDTV PC Tuners, using existing big screen displays and/or large screen Monitors (and VGA compatible TVs).

i don't know where they get off saying they are the 'first', because Hauppage has had a similar card out for a while.

Mandatory Links

http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/h tml /wintv-d.pdf

http://www.hauppage.com/html/products. htm

Then again, if Hauppage would make PC HDTV decoders that displayed full 1080i (only 480p currently), my new Sony G500 21" monitor displays 1920x1440 @ 75Hz quite nicely...

This paper (pdf format) gives some technical info on the WinTV-D card and also on DTV data casting in general.

BTW, the Slashdot and ABC headlines are only helping to increase the confusion of DTV and HDTV. The spectrum is reserved for DTV which can include HDTV. If it were for HDTV only, then there shouldn't so much left over spectrum when broadcasting 1080i.

The Asustek v3800 and the Elsa Erazor III both support these(TV in & out). If you don't think that will work for you, grab any TNT2 or TNT2 Ultra board and a Hauppage WinTV 98 . The single card or the combo should do everything your old cards did, only faster.

So there you have it, the NVidia based boards that do everything you want, or a two board solution (like you have now), that does everything you want. But why would you want to watch TV? Don't you know it rots your brain? :)