[jayw]

We have a DirecTivo hooked up via S-Video to our X1. Sometimes you just want hop into a Tivo menu real quick to setup a recording or whatever. I hate to fire up the projector for this. So here's my thought: My receiver has two s-video outputs. I thought I would hook the other one to my pc that's in the same room. It's a 700MHz Pentium III running Win98 SE. Really all I want to do is view the video hopefully without dropping a lot of frames in a window on this PC. I don't plan to capture video, but just view it live. I thought of an ATI All in Wonder card, but is there a cheaper option? There are a number of AIW cards now. Would a Radeon 7500 AIW card suffice or do I need a faster one? Is this hopeless? Would a Hauppage (sp) WinTV work? Advice from those that have "been there" would be much appreciated.


JayW


NOTE: I reposted this from the Front Projector forum because this is a more appropriate forum.

 

[Kensai]

I've used a Hauppage TV FM, an IOMagic PC PVR, a PixelView Xcapture and a LifeView FlyVideo 2000 (in that chronological and quality order) for just this sort of thing (Svideo in). The key to making this good is using DScaler instead of the software any of these come with (in fact, with DScaler, you don't even have to install drivers for any of these). DScaler is freeware that you can pick up at Source Forge.


I would recommend the FlyVideo, and I wouldn't pay more than $50 for it shipped (got mine for $45 shipped many moons ago).


With DScaler, you get alot of flexibility, so you should easily be able to find a level that lets you watch this enjoyably on your current system (though I know that you can engage the highest quality settings and a load of extra filtering to get a cpu requirement in the 2 to 3 gig range, but that's just not necessary, IMO).


Have fun.


Kensai