[mythtv-users] Best PCI HD capture card?

[Jarod Wilson]

On 07/24/2009 04:00 PM, Arthur H. Hamm Jr. wrote:
>>> I currently have a pair of WinTV-PVR-250's so I am used to having my
>>> recordings in MPEG compression. I understand the HD-5500 does not let
>>> myth
>>> control the pixel size or the bit rate of the recording. I have been
>>> told to
>>> expect HD recordings in the 15 GB per hour range. This uses much more
>>> hard
>>> drive space, more hard drive bandwidth and more CPU to play and record.
>>>
>>
>> I do not think any direct digital capture card does that. These just
>> take the network feed and save it into a file.
>
> Are you saying you don't think the WinTV-HVR-1600 built-in hardware
> MPEG-2 encoder will allow the encoding of a HD source? Or is the 1600
> the only card with a hardware encoder that will?

The MPEG2 encoder is for *analog* signals. HD sources *are already mpeg2 
from the head end*. When recording HDTV, all you're doing is dumping the 
broadcast mpeg2 stream to disk, there *is no encoding*.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com