Recommendations on capture card

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I can't seem to find a site that compares them directly. It's always one or the other vs 2 or 3 other cards. Although, the way I found out about them was at another forum. The guy I talked to about the card recently bought the new Hauppauge one and compared them, and he still likes the Leadtek more. Here is is post comparing them:

"Comparison between my new Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 tuner card, and my older Winfast TV2000 XP Deluxe.

The Hauppauge PVR 350
http://hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr350.html

Pros:
Hardware decoder and encoder, takes the work off of the CPU.

Cons:
1. Card is 3 times the money of my Leadtek card.
2. You must run several apps at once if you want to watch live TV and then schedule a show manually for a recording later.
3. No way to have the PC shut down for the night after the last show has recorded.
4. When using the Titan TV website to schedule your shows, there is also no option to have the PC shut down for the night.
5. When you want to watch a file you recorded earlier, you must hit the record button to bring up another drop down console from the TV watching application.
It does a short recording until you hit stop, then you have to go and delete that file since you do not need it.
Then you click on file in the drop down app to find your recording to play back.
6. The remote wire is smaller than a standard 1/8" mini stereo jack/cable.
I thought I could use the Y connector by my PC and run the new remote wire from them, but it fits to loose.
Not sure if I can find a 50' or so extension cable either so I can also run another remote wire in the living room for the TV set.
Currently I have 2 remote sensors for my Leadtek card.
One by the PC, the other one stuck to the TV set.

The Leadtek Winfast TV2000 XP Deluxe (being phased out)

Pros:
1. Card can be programmed by both the scheduler and via Titan TVs webpage to shut down the PC after the last recording of the evening.
2. Uses standard 1/8" stereo plugs for the remote control, so I can use a Y splitter cable to run 2 remote sensors.
One by the PC, and another by the TV.
3. All applications are within on app.
No needing to fire up a separate app do to setup a manual recording if you prefer it over Titan TVs web site interface.

Cons:
1. Not hardware supported for the encoders.
Big deal, never missed them.

And the winner is...
The older and cheaper Winfast TV2000 XP Deluxe."
 
"Cons:
1. Not hardware supported for the encoders.
Big deal, never missed them."


so i guess you're comparing performance with convenience. if you want performance, you'll have to pay a premium. if you have a slow comp, the last thing you need is for the encoding to be using up your cpu.
 
Hasn't affected my computer at all. I watch TV and such while playing games and messaging. HL2, BF2 and CoD2 just to name a few. Ultimately up to him though.
 
"- 10 bit video decoder with adaptive comb filter, give you high quality video output"

it said that about the leadtek one. are you sure it doesn't encode/decode onboard?
 
Do you think a person needs MCE or do you think just plain xp home would be fine? I know the oem capture cards require MCE but would it be necessary if I didn't get an oem card? Would I lose out on some of the good things that MCE does? I know that some reviews recommend MCE even if you don't have oem. What are your thoughts?

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