jrandeck

[quote=jrandeck]

[quote=SpacemanSpiff2000]

Phase 1: I need either a Colossus 1414 or a 1212 PVR (in case I want the PVR to be more mobile).  I was going to pull the trigger on the 1212, but everyone except Hauppauge is out of stock right now and the eBay market is getting pricier. So I’m thinking 1414 also due to price (even though the 1414 seems to get few, and sometimes convincingly bad, user reviews on Amazon & Newegg).

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While Netflixing is a great idea that hadn’t hit me yet, my #1 is actually >1yr of cooking shows (in SD) my wife & I use for reference … not on Netflix.  DVR has done a great job of filling up with non-repeats. We used to collect them on 6hr VHS and catalog what was where, but obviously doing the same thing digitally makes it a whole lot easier, and then I can start collecting them slowly in HD (but I’d rather have them at all first).

And my #2 is actually home made movies on VHS-C from when my 14 & 11 yrs old were ~2yrs old (from a 1995 RCA “small wonder” CC612, which is larger than my DSLR and my Canon Vixia put together).  No choice there; the time on both will be worth it to me. But for anything Netflixable, I totally get it; thx for the idea.

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One point that just occurred to me that should probably be made regarding your #1 & #2 use cases is that if the content is standard definition (VHS tapes and your cooking shows) then the Hauppauge 1212 or 1414 might be overkill.

  If you have a lot of HD shows on your current DVR that you want to move off, then great, go ahead with that, but if you have mostly SD and don’t need the HD stuff to remain in HD, then an SD capture card or analog (NTSC) TV tuner card with an S-Video input (or composite if that’s all your STB has) could get the job done for less money.  I’ve converted VHS Tapes by setting up a manual recording and using the S-Video input on my ATI tuner card in the past, but I’d imagine that a dedicated capture device would have software that’s a little easier to set up and use for that scenario.

Other than cost, the other thing to consider is that the 1212 or 1414 might give you smaller files for a given quality since they use a more advanced codec than the SD cards (at least the ones I’ve used which had mpeg-2 encoders.)

Hopefully, this won’t confuse the issue, but it might be a valid option. 

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[quote=jrandeck]

One point that just occurred to me that should probably be made regarding your #1 & #2 use cases is that if the content is standard definition (VHS tapes and your cooking shows) then the Hauppauge 1212 or 1414 might be overkill.

  If you have a lot of HD shows on your current DVR that you want to move off, then great, go ahead with that, but if you have mostly SD and don’t need the HD stuff to remain in HD, then an SD capture card or analog (NTSC) TV tuner card with an S-Video input (or composite if that’s all your STB has) could get the job done for less money.  I’ve converted VHS Tapes by setting up a manual recording and using the S-Video input on my ATI tuner card in the past, but I’d imagine that a dedicated capture device would have software that’s a little easier to set up and use for that scenario.

Other than cost, the other thing to consider is that the 1212 or 1414 might give you smaller files for a given quality since they use a more advanced codec than the SD cards (at least the ones I’ve used which had mpeg-2 encoders.)

Hopefully, this won’t confuse the issue, but it might be a valid option.

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Now that is a great point. Being new to all this, I have only researched the non-tuning PVRs and not the tuner cards and have no clue; a quick look at the Hauppauge website shows ~15 tuners and I don’t know where to begin … and that’s just 1 company.

But maybe I can shortcut it with this question. I’m not up on codecs and file formats. What are the best file formats for this stuff today? I take it from above that mpeg-2 is older.  If the 1414 does make this smaller by doing some work for me, I have little time and am already running out of space (due to my HD camcorder and a 18mo old), so that might be worth it. But I would need to know what file formats to look for.

Sacrificing a PVR also begs these questions: If I get the Ceton sooner than later, when I record the HD versions of the cooking shows to my HTPC, could there be issues with moving/using them? Something that could also be solved by re-recording via PVR?  I also figure if I don’t get a Ceton sooner (and this answer might influence that), if I start re-obtaining the cooking shows in HD on the DVR, I’ll need the PVR for those also.

P.S. – I’m having multiple problems with this site, at least over Chrome. The fonts have gone wonky size-wise before (I started the one over before posting it) and now, even though I delete my quote and jrandeck’s quote above, it insists on appearing as Spiff(old)-JR-JR(repeated)-Spiff(new).