PCI card

Is there an 'idiots guide' on the web which will explain the differences
between the various cards available? There appear to be a variety of
packages between £35 and £150, and I find it difficult to understand the
reason for such a great span of prices. There doesn't seem to be a great
deal of difference between facilities

My requirements are fairly simple (I think!) - I want the computer to act as
a programmable video recorder (with remote), receiving digital TV (freeview
only), with software that will allow simple editting of programs (chopping
out adverts), and possibly writing to CD/DVD.

TIA

Keith

Keith W wrote:
Is there an 'idiots guide' on the web which will explain the differences
between the various cards available? There appear to be a variety of
packages between £35 and £150, and I find it difficult to understand the
reason for such a great span of prices. There doesn't seem to be a great
deal of difference between facilities

My requirements are fairly simple (I think!) - I want the computer to act as
a programmable video recorder (with remote), receiving digital TV (freeview
only), with software that will allow simple editting of programs (chopping
out adverts), and possibly writing to CD/DVD.

Your requirements may *seem* simple but the silly state of the DVD/TV
industry makes it less so (and some of the stupid software).

You can get a digital TV card for about £45, the TwinHan/VisionDTV one
is well recommended. The Nebula one at about £100 is the sort of
Rolls Royce of such cards, it depends on whether its extra facilities
are worth the extra money to you.

The problem with *all* the software I have see that comes with TV
cards is that for some wierd reason it's desparate to persuade you
that it's really a TV/DVD machine and not some software running on a
PC. Thus instead of standard, undestandable window layout, buttons,
menus, etc. they completely redesign the standard interface and make
everything twice as difficult to do.

OK, so you've got past that hurdle and you want to write your recorded
program to a DVD. Again you have to forget completely that this is a
familiar PC you are using, writing is called burning, and you have to
add a whole raft of junk to your simple recording (menus, chapters,
etc.) to make a 'movie' of it on your DVD.

I now use Nero Vision Express 2 for creating DVDs from my off-the-air
disk files, it's not too bad but I wish there was a straightforward
"please put the whole of this recording on a DVD" option.

For recordings which are up to about 2Gb (about an hour or so) you can
actually simply copy the mpeg2 file to the DVD with no menus or
editing and most modern DVD players will recognise the mpeg2 file and
play it. I wish it was as straightforward for longer recordings.

--
Chris Green

In article , writes
Keith W wrote:
Is there an 'idiots guide' on the web which will explain the differences
between the various cards available? There appear to be a variety of
packages between £35 and £150, and I find it difficult to understand the
reason for such a great span of prices. There doesn't seem to be a great
deal of difference between facilities

My requirements are fairly simple (I think!) - I want the computer to act as
a programmable video recorder (with remote), receiving digital TV (freeview
only), with software that will allow simple editting of programs (chopping
out adverts), and possibly writing to CD/DVD.

Your requirements may *seem* simple but the silly state of the DVD/TV
industry makes it less so (and some of the stupid software).

You can get a digital TV card for about £45, the TwinHan/VisionDTV one
is well recommended. The Nebula one at about £100 is the sort of
Rolls Royce of such cards, it depends on whether its extra facilities
are worth the extra money to you.

Yep got one, expensive when you consider how much a sat set top box is
but then again you can use your PC as a VCR or more correctly a VTR!...

The problem with *all* the software I have see that comes with TV
cards is that for some wierd reason it's desparate to persuade you
that it's really a TV/DVD machine and not some software running on a
PC. Thus instead of standard, undestandable window layout, buttons,
menus, etc. they completely redesign the standard interface and make
everything twice as difficult to do.


Don't think so I've been playing around with a Skystart sat receiver
card and that isn't difficult to use, and in fact it seems easier to set
up and organise programmes than what doing the same thing on it
conventional sat receiver is!..

For recordings which are up to about 2Gb (about an hour or so) you can
actually simply copy the mpeg2 file to the DVD with no menus or
editing and most modern DVD players will recognise the mpeg2 file and
play it. I wish it was as straightforward for longer recordings.


Yes so that then is a software problem and someone needs to write that
package?..

However a sat receiver is really a PC in a way, and a PC is a sat
receiver the two are starting to combine
--
Tony Sayer