"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
news:ejvji8$uoi$1@aioe.server.aioe.org...

>>
>>
>
> At this point, I'd suggest having a look in rec.video.desktop, for more
> practical experiences. Either use Google and look at people's past
> choices,
> or ask your question there, and see what they would choose as a solution.
>
> The PVR350 is cheap enough, that you don't have to torture yourself. You
> can set the quality high (least compression), and get as good a picture
> as possible, at the expense of slightly higher disk utilization. That way,
> the card is almost behaving like an uncompressed card, since the losses
> aren't very great. And at least with a card like that, you know you
> aren't paying a price for compression or decompression. (A card like that
> can still use CPU, and the "why" is a great mystery.)
>
> (The manual has a section on the quality options)
> http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/manuals/m-pvr.pdf
>
> (The hardware requirement is "733MHz P3", which will load one core a bit.)
> http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/produ...ta_pvr350.html
>
> Since the uncompressed cards are so cheap, you could buy one expensive
> card and one cheap card, and experiment with both. I guess it really
> depends on how many days you want to spend with a search engine,
> digging up articles and reviews for the various approaches. If the
> cheap uncompressed card doesn't pan out, you can still find other
> uses for it. For example, if you need to set up a surveillance camera,
> and have it take a snapshot when there is a scene change, the
> uncompressed card could be used for that (with, say, a dedicated PC).
> So you don't have to throw the card away, if it turns out to be too
> resource intensive to be unnoticed on your 3800+ X2.
>
> I've given up on recording TV at home here, because I don't have
> cable, and I don't have a data source good enough to capture.
> Some day, we'll get OTA digital here, and maybe then I'll give
> it another shot, with a newer card.
>
> Paul

Once again, I thank you for your knowledgeable reply.
I might add that my experience with (DISH) Sat. capture has been quite
rewarding.
I will typically record video using the DISH box`s PVR, and from there (if
desirable)playback to my "AIW" for capture to HDD.

Matt