SnapStream Beyond TV

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

I am looking to take an old system and turn it into a video server
running Beyond TV and 3 or 4 TV tuners.

Has anyone else done this yet? I thought the TV tuner had to be
connected to the sound card in order to record sound. Obviously you can
only connect one card to Line In, so what about the others?

I'm looking for a recommendation on a cheap TV tuner that has hardware
MPG encoding. So far I'm looking at the WinTV PVR 150 for $60 each.
Any other recomendations?

Thanks!

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Dave,

I have an AMD K6 500 256mb ram 4 gig system drive 80 gig cature drive
running BTV 4.5 slow slow sytem but it works very well as a recoder
it is too slow to play back. It sits in a closet connected to the
cable and records my shows i use the web interface for doing the
scheduling and upkeep. then play back using anohter PC or my
Hauppauge media MVP

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

>I emailed Hauppauge and was pleasantly surprised to get a fairly quickly
>response from their sales people telling me that the sound does not go
>through the sound card any more for recording.

Question.....

Does Hauppauge have a PCI Express version of their PVR
card yet?

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

>Not that I have seen. Although since it's not a "video card", I don't
>see why they would make a PCI Express version. Not many systems have
>more than one PCI Express slot from what I've read.

Im wanting to put a Hauupage TV and PVR card in Dell
470 which is typically used as a computer aided
drafting "workstation.

Do you think the Hauppuage card will be ok in the Dell
470?

Here is link on 470 specs

http://tinyurl.com/5kvxf

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

>> Do you think the Hauppuage card will be ok in the Dell
>> 470?
>
>Yes. I work at Dell and I asked one of our engineers. He said the
>Hauppauge card should work fine.

Thanks Dave

Well let me ask you this..... Im not sure what "type"
of PC I want and need

My uses would be general computing...... word
processing, Internet surfing, etc

But Im also interested in using it as a "television" or
PVR. And maybe using it with voice recognition software
such as Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate what I say
in news groups instead of typing it (need to reduce
typing)

Having said that..... Im wondering if a Dell server
wouldn't actually be a better fit for me. Could I use
a server as "desktop" when needed such as for word
processing and Net surfing..... but also put a TV card
in it and make a PVR out of it? As well as use it for
voice recognition?

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

>I think he's refering to PCI-E

yes that is what I was referring to

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

me@privacy.net wrote:

> But Im also interested in using it as a "television" or
> PVR. And maybe using it with voice recognition software
> such as Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate what I say
> in news groups instead of typing it (need to reduce
> typing)

> Having said that..... Im wondering if a Dell server
> wouldn't actually be a better fit for me. Could I use
> a server as "desktop" when needed such as for word
> processing and Net surfing..... but also put a TV card
> in it and make a PVR out of it? As well as use it for
> voice recognition?

I use an older Dell server (Intel 875 chipset, 2.8 Ghz w/HT, 800fsb) and have
the Haup PVR-250 in a PCI slot, and on the same box use a Plextor 402U as an
external usb2 tuner. I don't experience any problems or bottlenecks when
either one or both tuners are recording. My drives are simple WD IDE, 7200
speed with 8 meg buffers, nothing fancy.

As an experiment I've used the Plextor external tuner on my laptop - Pentium M
1.6 Ghz with just 512 ram and a slow 5400 hard drive - with no problems at
all. I might have had problems had I stuck Two external tuners on and been
recording two shows at once; haven't tried it.

But on any halfway decent desktop system you shouldn't run into problems
running a couple of tuners simultaneously *and* doing other stuff at the same
time, because encoding's done on the cards leaving the processor relatively
free. I regularly encode large mpg files to divx or xvid while a tv program's
recording on one of the cards. No problemo. Nex

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

me@privacy.net wrote:

> Any particular reason why you used a server for this?


Cost, and because it's my fastest system at the moment. Got it brand new and
dirt cheap on a special Dell was running (400sc). It came semi-naked, so I
added the os, a better video card, a gig of fast ram (from the paltry 256mb it
came with) replaced the 1 hd with two faster, bigger ones and replaced the 1
cd reader with two dvd burners, and of course the pvr-250. It's been my main
system for a year and still runs like a charm.

Stuck the hd it came with into a 1Ghz celery left over from the punic wars.
Match made in heaven.

So no, no special reason to use a server or anything else for that matter as
long as it sports a relatively decent mobo, a good warranty, and that you add
the requisite drives, mem, vid card and anything else you'll need. Faster bus
is better, a g of fast ram always helps, and *never* forget to bonk the thing
at first boot with a bottle of passable supermarket champagne. Nex

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

me@privacy.net wrote:

> But i think the latest "cheap" Dell servers don't have
> AGP or PCI slots for the Hauupauge card. No?


As far as I know, all of them do. The very very low-end dell 400sc server I
got has 1 agp slot, and right next to it a slew of pci slots. Also has two
internal hd bays and two dvd bays. The whole thing screwlessly opens-up
vertically down the middle for light-speed access; just grab hold either side
and spread apart to fool within. Useful for those first few days when you're
opening the thing up 37 times to install stuff, reboot, fiddle, reboot, take
stuff out, boot, put more stuff in, reboot, swap, boot, move, boot and reboot.
Yes, I left the case completely open for much of the time at first, but so
many times you think it's Over when it really isn't. And then you fix stuff
that turns out to not be fixed at all, or has caused probs elsewhere. Love
that case. Nex