[skilzygw]

Hi I just built my first HTPC. My rig is:


ECS 735 mobo

AMD 1.33ghz

256-512 ddr ram

Geforce 2 mx 64meg

16* dvd

cd/rw

5.1 live


Now for my tv tuner card I was looking into the io magic pvr card. I hear lots of good things about it. So what do you think about it? Can it really do Time-shifting well? How about video quality?


The hard drive I'm buying is 60gb 5400rpm Western Digital/ Is this fast enough for Time-shifting, gaming, recording shows?


How does D-scaler work? Do i have enough horsepower? Does dscaler work on live material? How about copied material on hard drive then played later?


Is Dscaler easy to set up?


Thanks for ALL your help. This site has been very very very imformative.


Thanks!

 

[Bart Tichelman]

skilzygw,


TV Tuner card - I use the I/O Magic PCPVR, and I would recommend it for your system. It is good value as a tuner, with good VCR capabilities, and is excellent with dScaler. I have used it to record shows, but scheduling must be done manually as the advertised Electronic Program Guide (EPG) does not exist. With a 1.33 Ghz system you should be able to record at the highest quality level. I am currently have the card on my test system (700mhz AMD), and can only record at the average quality level, which is equivalent to to VHS-SP to my eyes.


Hard drive - should be good to go.


dScaler - It is intended for real-time processing of interlaced material (i.e. straight off the cable or antenna); not intended to play back of recorded material. The PC VCR applications provide playback functionality as well as real-time processing, but dScaler is far better, IMO.


Ease of use is good once it is installed. You have to download and unzip it into a directory, create a shortcut on your desktop, on initial running select hardware, determine video and audio inputs and start fiddling with controls. With your system you would want to use the highest quality (Adaptive is suggested).


Good luck, and do a search for the card and for dScaler to give you more help, but I'd strongly recommend the I/O Magic card and dScaler for your system....

 

[Hugh Magoo]

the io magic card is a very good value but the tuner does not produce stereo sound. the best option for recording tv for most any tuner card is to not use the tuner, but an external svideo tuner (like a vcr, or cable/sat box) due to image quality, as well as sound quality. This fact makes scheduling and recording alot more complicated. Keep that in mind, I wouldn't get my hopes up about time-shifting. for $40 you may have great success, but just keep an open mind. I don't like being pessimistic, but hopefully this area will see improvement over time. I don't think there are many options right now that stand above the rest as far as timeshifting goes, so there is no reason to shy away from the IO Magic for this reason.


I can't really tell if you have a faster drive already to hold your OS and apps. but if possible I would get a 7200 RPM drive like the Seagate Barracuda ATA IV. Very quiet drive. Very fast as well. The 5400rpm drive will be quiet, but also obviously slower.


There is a member here working on a PVR/timeshifting applet for dscaler. and there is also experimental timeshifting capabilities within dscaler itself. The member who is working on the dscaler PVR aspect is Soopaman.


dscaler is so easy to setup.