Plextor Convert X proposed setup

[rcook]

I want to purchase and set up a system to record from my digital cable and from my aging library of VHS tapes. My television equpment is downstairs and my computing equipment upstairs, so it is not real easy to hook one to another; I figure I'll need to buy hardware for this purpose.

I'm considering the Plextor ConvertX box listed on SageTV's product page; it has a tuner and built-in conversion for MPEG 4, 2 and 1. I'm also considering an external disk drive, 200 or 300G, with USB 2 connection. Then I thought I might get an inexpensive Windows system to run Sage and use this setup for recording; then I could carry the disk upstairs and use the other computer for editing and burning the DVDs.

I might even get a laptop, and only connect it when I'm going to record. I suppose the downside of that is that I can't take the laptop somewhere else and record at the same time.

1st question: does the above setup sound reasonable with an inexpensive desktop? If I do want to edit the video on the machine I get for recording, what is the minimum processor speed and memory size I should get?

2nd question: is using USB 2.0 for both input signal (from the Plextor) and the output signal (to the disk) at the same time reasonable?

3rd question: is a laptop reasonable for this purpose, or is there something inherently slower about it that might cause problems? I suppose I should ask the same thing of a USB external disk drive.

4th question: I've also seen a unit similar to the Plextor that has no tuner; I don't need a tuner in this unit, since I have digital cable and have to go through the cable box anyway (I'm going to need an IR blaster with all of this). Is there any problem with using a USB box that doesn't have the tuner, and just using the cable box for that?

tia,
Ralph

[rcook]

I thought I posted this once, but it doesn't seem to be here.

I'm considering the Plextor ConvertX and a USB external hard drive. My thought is that I can use a minimal Windows machine to run Sage and connect the two of them together, then connect the external hard drive to another machine if I want to for editing.

My computers are upstairs and the television is downstairs; I practically have to have a dedicated machine for this. But the one upstairs is the "main" machine, with the bigger screen and so forth, so being able to move things would be convenient.

Anyone see any problem with this?

I've also considered the Dazzle VCD-DVC 150, but it only has MPEG 2 and 1, not MPEG 4; am I right in assuming I'll want MPEG 4 for making DVDs with this machine?

tia,
rc

[dvd_maniac]

DVDs are made with MPEG-2 not MPEG-4.
Mpeg-4 in my opinion is for making quality videos with small file sizes. I have a Plextor TV402 and I do not use it. I do not like the Plextor because to get decent quality I had to use a bitrate almost as high as the MPEG-2 bitrate. I think this is because it is equal to 1-pass encoding.
I personally do not like the plextor mpeg-4 recording quality and I also do not like that it is limited to 6mbit/s for MPEG-2 recordings. I use a couple of Hauppauge USB2s and a couple 250s at Max Recording Quality and shrink the files using Xvid and get MUCH better quality at 300MB/Hr than I do with the Plextor at 600MB/Hr.