I only have the accessDTV card so I can't comment on the HiPix or Hauppauge cards.
Why does the AccessDTV have a VGA port on it? For full-screen HDTV. Unless you are planning to always want to watch HDTV in a window on your Windows desktop, you have to use the accessDTV card's VGA output.
I want to use the Nvidia graphics card to display the output, not the AccessDTV card. Then you will never be able to take advantage of the best output capabilities of the accessDTV card. accessDTV's resizable desktop window could be maximized to fill the screen, but the picture would be very blurry and low-rez.
How will that interact with my requirement for DVI output only? The accessDTV card doesn't have DVI output. If you must have this, look elsewhere.
Also, both the Hauppauge and AccessDTV have onboard SPDIF audio. Can I use the M-Audio card I am planning to use for DVD's or do I have to use the audio output they supply? I don't know about M-Audio; I use a Soundblaster Live! 5.1 card with SPDIF optical output to my Sony receiver. accessDTV does have a coaxial (RCA-style) AC-3 output, but I have never been able to get this to work. I don't know whether the card is at fault or the AC-3 coaxial input on my receiver... can any other accessDTV owners answer this one?
The encrypted PVR files issue on the AccessDTV also looks like a negative. Eh. Depends on what you are going to do with the files. Since I use my accessDTV card as an "HDTiVo", I don't really care that the files it makes aren't playable on other computers (I don't have any other accessDTV-equipped computers so it doesn't matter to me).
A few unsolicited comments:
Overall I am moderately satisfied with the accessDTV card, but only because there doesn't seem to be anything out there that's much better (HiPix and WinTV-HD owners will have to speak for themselves). Personally I will be the first in line if TiVo ever comes out with a high-definition version of their product that can record DISH, DirecTV and OTA HDTV.
Why does the AccessDTV have a VGA port on it? For full-screen HDTV. Unless you are planning to always want to watch HDTV in a window on your Windows desktop, you have to use the accessDTV card's VGA output.
I want to use the Nvidia graphics card to display the output, not the AccessDTV card. Then you will never be able to take advantage of the best output capabilities of the accessDTV card. accessDTV's resizable desktop window could be maximized to fill the screen, but the picture would be very blurry and low-rez.
How will that interact with my requirement for DVI output only? The accessDTV card doesn't have DVI output. If you must have this, look elsewhere.
Also, both the Hauppauge and AccessDTV have onboard SPDIF audio. Can I use the M-Audio card I am planning to use for DVD's or do I have to use the audio output they supply? I don't know about M-Audio; I use a Soundblaster Live! 5.1 card with SPDIF optical output to my Sony receiver. accessDTV does have a coaxial (RCA-style) AC-3 output, but I have never been able to get this to work. I don't know whether the card is at fault or the AC-3 coaxial input on my receiver... can any other accessDTV owners answer this one?
The encrypted PVR files issue on the AccessDTV also looks like a negative. Eh. Depends on what you are going to do with the files. Since I use my accessDTV card as an "HDTiVo", I don't really care that the files it makes aren't playable on other computers (I don't have any other accessDTV-equipped computers so it doesn't matter to me).
A few unsolicited comments:
- The accessDTV card is prone to lock up or "freeze" if the signal strength on a channel falls below an acceptable level for too long. This is a huge problem when making unattended recordings, because a bug in the current software causes the recorder to stay "on" after a recording is completed. If you are away from your HTPC for several days in a row and aren't there to manually turn the recorder software off, accessDTV tends to hang and you wind up missing recordings. GRR.
- accessDTV is very sensitive to the chipset on your HTPC's motherboard. I had nothing but grief on a 1 GHz Compaq Presario 7000 because the friggin' VIA chips on its motherboard caused accessDTV to barf whenever I tried to use the fast-forward or rewind functions. The same card on a four-year-old 450 MHz Pentium II computer works just fine in FFWD and REV because the older, slower computer has an Intel chipset.
- The recorder software leaves much to be desired. There is no way to manually program a recurring recording, for starters, so you have to manually enter your programs week after week. You could subscribe to their PPG service for $10 a month, but you still have to remember each week to select the shows to record (that's why I cancelled my subscription; if I could tell the recorder to always record The West Wing each week, maybe I would have kept the subscription).
Overall I am moderately satisfied with the accessDTV card, but only because there doesn't seem to be anything out there that's much better (HiPix and WinTV-HD owners will have to speak for themselves). Personally I will be the first in line if TiVo ever comes out with a high-definition version of their product that can record DISH, DirecTV and OTA HDTV.