AVerTV USB HD DVR- Finally Competition for the HD-PVR

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ChaOConnor

Hmm... so when you go to watch it, it doesn't even look like HD then, right?

It will probably still be better than capturing SD.

That's an odd decision on their part, why not just capture it like it's supposed to be, then you'd have a killer product!

Because prior to the HD PVR, it was very, very, very expensive for the hardware required to compress HD in real time.

[ChaOConnor]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It will probably still be better than capturing SD.



Because prior to the HD PVR, it was very, very, very expensive for the hardware required to compress HD in real time.

What I'm trying to get at is this may be a more stable, easier to configure alternative to the HD PVR... wonder if they'd be interested in upgrading their hardware anytime soon for me to try out. ;-)

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by ChaOConnor

What I'm trying to get at is this may be a more stable, easier to configure alternative to the HD PVR... wonder if they'd be interested in upgrading their hardware anytime soon for me to try out. ;-)

I find that hard to fathom. My HDPVR's have not crashed since sometime around june last year, which was right before I switched to the 1.0.53 driver.
Oh and installation doesn't get any easier than pointing to the drivers in a folder does it? ;-)

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

I find that hard to fathom. My HDPVR's have not crashed since sometime around june last year, which was right before I switched to the 1.0.53 driver.

Mine locks up too, although the 1.5.6.1 whql have helped a lot. I'm using optical audio and I can't lock my STB to a single resolution. It's not too bad from a stability perspective, but it's certainly not perfect.

Oh and installation doesn't get any easier than pointing to the drivers in a folder does it? ;-)

The actual installation of the HD-PVR was easy. It's the channel changing that's a bit more annoying. Hauppauge's blaster is moderately easy to set up, but you can only use one. Setting up something like the USB-UIRT is extra work. I used firewire for channel changing, and had done most of the work earlier when I set up firewire recording with a different STB.

So I think there's plenty of room for improvement over the HD-PVR on stability, channel changing and price.

[Graygeek]

Originally Posted by ChaOConnor

Hmm... so when you go to watch it, it doesn't even look like HD then, right? That's an odd decision on their part, why not just capture it like it's supposed to be, then you'd have a killer product!

It does look like the original HD, same aspect ratio, fills the 16:9 screen .... if you look close, 3 ft from screen it is just not as crisp, with slight jaggies in straight angled lines etc. If the casual watcher did not know it they would think they were watching HD.

The picture quality is as good as any DVD. It passes the WAF for viewing with a two thumbs up!

For channels like History HD, FX HD, SyFy HD etc. it look 95% as good as the original. I watch almost no SD .... the HDHR's capture the clear QAM (local networks) and everything else in HD on my cable is via the HAVA, works great, never locks up, never crashes and looks fine!

[ChaOConnor]

Originally Posted by Graygeek

It does look like the original HD, same aspect ratio, fills the 16:9 screen .... if you look close, 3 ft from screen it is just not as crisp, with slight jaggies in straight angled lines etc. If the casual watcher did not know it they would think they were watching HD.

The picture quality is as good as any DVD. It passes the WAF for viewing with a two thumbs up!

For channels like History HD, FX HD, SyFy HD etc. it look 95% as good as the original. I watch almost no SD .... the HDHR's capture the clear QAM (local networks) and everything else in HD on my cable is via the HAVA, works great, never locks up, never crashes and looks fine!

See, that's what I'm looking for! I need to find some screen shots of what it looks like, I'll have to do some googling. Thanks!

[Graygeek]

I could create a short 2 minute or so clip from a recent capture, just need to figure out how to get it to you. Not sure if I could upload it here to file section or not.

[vikingisson]

too bad that HDMI sucks for anything but a last mile connection (the monitor). Component is still perfectly fine even at HD, hardly any difference and is usually more stable. Channel changing is a drag (USB-UIRT is only marginally better than a blaster). No digital audio? fail.

Funny but my HD-PVR has been fairly solid lately and I use the digital audio. But the whole mess of boxes in the middle leaves a bad taste so a direct competitor isn't very exciting to me unless it does something very different or is less than 1/2 the price. Do the same thing on a pc card for cheap and I might be curious. maybe.

[ChaOConnor]

Originally Posted by Graygeek

I could create a short 2 minute or so clip from a recent capture, just need to figure out how to get it to you. Not sure if I could upload it here to file section or not.

Sweet, thanks! Maybe something like mediafire to upload it to... hmm... or depending on the size we could email it.

[Graygeek]

Just created a 2 minute clip .... about 121MB .... I'll look at mediafire and PM you

[mozerd]

The AVerTV USB HD DVR will be available in March for $199.99 MSRP.

[mayhewda]

Originally Posted by mozerd

The AVerTV USB HD DVR will be available in March for $199.99 MSRP.

So to the OP's question - there is (or will be) competition to the HD-PVR. This can only be good news.

[tomfisk]

The word is that the AverTV device requires software encoding so it will require a bit of horsepower. I wouldn't consider that competition.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by tomfisk

The word is that the AverTV device requires software encoding so it will require a bit of horsepower. I wouldn't consider that competition.

software encoder, no 5.1 audio for the AverTV. Not interested in the slightest.


Hauppauge HD-PVR has a pretty nice hold on the market because they have an excusive with the maker of the encoding chip inside. You might think, well just use a different chip right? Well as I understand it, that chip is the only one available in a reasonable price range with its featuresets. Thats why many of the videocameras use that same chip across camera brand names. The next closest chip in terms of capability ran in the 1,000s last I heard.

Hauppauge has spent some time and manhours on the HD-PVR and it's been a pretty good seller for them. They certainly aren't giving up on it or anything, but I think they needed a product with bigger sales $ potential which I think they hope will be CableCard. If the economy improves and Hauppauge's bottom line gets better, then we might see them work on an improved HD-PVR model. But for now, what you see is what you get. Fortunately it works very well for me as it is.

[stanger89]

But since USB doesn't have 1.5Gbps of bandwidth, how can it possibly be a software encoder? Unless it downconverts to SD or something on the fly which makes it even more unattractive.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by stanger89

But since USB doesn't have 1.5Gbps of bandwidth, how can it possibly be a software encoder? Unless it downconverts to SD or something on the fly which makes it even more unattractive.

Good point. I was just going with what was said above on software encoding - I don't really know.

But not having 5.1 audio capability is enough for me to not be interested honestly.
Now I'm wondering what chip is inside the Avermedia. I'm doing some searching to see if anyone out there knows.


UPDATE: Wow, seconds after I typed that I got confirmation that the avermedia definitely uses the same chip that is found in the Hauppauge HD-PVR so it is hardware encoding and it has very similar innards as the Hauppauge. Interesting. If only they had included 5.1 I guess there's hope though - if they bring out 2 versions perhaps, one with 5.1 would make it very interesting indeed.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by tomfisk

The word is that the AverTV device requires software encoding so it will require a bit of horsepower. I wouldn't consider that competition.

It's my understanding that Avermedia's PCI-e HD-DVR uses software encoding, but I'm quite certain the USB one does hardware encoding.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Brent

Good point. I was just going with what was said above on software encoding - I don't really know.

Yeah, I'd just accepted it for a while too, and then I thought to myself "Huh? How's that going to work?"

But not having 5.1 audio capability is enough for me to not be interested honestly.

I don't know, 5.1 for a DVR application is hugely overrated IMO. Sure it's nice, but far from a necessity. Stereo will still give you surround, and broadcast (including Satellite/cable) quality is just not archive worthy to begin with IMO. Especially with so much stuff on Blu-ray.

UPDATE: Wow, seconds after I typed that I got confirmation that the avermedia definitely uses the same chip that is found in the Hauppauge HD-PVR so it is hardware encoding and it has very similar innards as the Hauppauge. Interesting. If only they had included 5.1 I guess there's hope though - if they bring out 2 versions perhaps, one with 5.1 would make it very interesting indeed.

Will be mostly interesting to see if it suffers similar "sensitivity" issues to the HD PVR.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I don't know, 5.1 for a DVR application is hugely overrated IMO. Sure it's nice, but far from a necessity. Stereo will still give you surround, and broadcast (including Satellite/cable) quality is just not archive worthy to begin with IMO. Especially with so much stuff on Blu-ray.

You might be right about this. I complained about the HD-PVR's initial lack of support for 5.1 sound, and I avoided buying it until I was more comfortable with it's support for capturing 5.1 sound. But, after losing some recordings due to HD-PVR lockups, I've at least temporarily given up on 5.1 sound (OT, but I think it was actually non-Dolby sound over optical that was actually giving me problems).

After several days of using stereo sound, I don't miss it incredibly. I do notice a difference in sound quality, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe I'd care more if it wasn't for the fact that 90% of my recordings are either off of firewire or clear QAM. I mainly just have the HD-PVR as a back-up capture device to my QAM and firewire tuners, but it's also the only thing that captures HBO and STARZ. I don't watch those channels frequently now (although my girlfriend does), but that will change a bit once HBO starts airing The Pacific. I might miss 5.1 sound a lot more then.

Really, I think the most serious problem with the Hauppauge HD-PVR isn't it's sensitivity- it's the lack of a recovery mechanism. If the HD-PVR could somehow be rebooted automatically when it crashes then I wouldn't have any problems. For the past several months my HD-PVR has only locked-up at the very end of recordings. Sage detects that it locks up, but can't do anything about it (it tries to reset it, but it doesn't work). Having lockups that require power-cycling the HD-PVR to fix it means that even a relatively low lock-up rate can still impact a significant number of recordings.

Maybe Avermedia (or Hauppauge) can come up with a better way of dealing with lock-ups.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Really, I think the most serious problem with the Hauppauge HD-PVR isn't it's sensitivity- it's the lack of a recovery mechanism.

Well that's kind of what I mean. There are going to be problems with the input stream, and the encoder is probably going to choke from time to time. But the HD PVR really should just recover itself and not go tango uniform I don't know what part is, but it should be able to keep going after a glitch.