HiDTV Pro 2.0 HDTV Computer Card

[Gregg Lengling]

I know I've told everyone I bought the HiDTV Pro Viewer card (there's 2 of us with them), but I've been fighting with it for a month trying to get a clean recording.  I finally found that it was using 100% of CPU usage and of course that's going to cause problems.  After giving their software developers a list of my system and hardware they actually replicated the problem and told me it was their problem not mine and they would have a patch shortly.  

Well that was 1 week ago and last night at 9PM I got an e-mail with a password for an FTP site to download a BETA version of new software they hope to release in the next week or so.  I went and downloaded and after screwing around a while removing the software and installing the new software and upgrading drivers I fired up the card.

It works better than I ever expected, I had always been able to watch DTV and regular TV with it, but couldn't record a copy of any type of TV, it would just jump, skip and stall.   Well I've recorded HighDef on the computer now and it's perfect, when I play it back (either on my computer monitor or my 61" HDTV) it's perfect.  I think I'm in love now...BTW my CPU usage depending on what functions I'm doing with it now is between 25 and 45% max., so even if I'm recording I can play with the computer and not screw up the recording.

I especially like the links built in the program to TitanTV, as I just go over there and scroll through the schedule for Milwaukee and click on what I want to record and it does all the scheduling for me...talk about simple.


Anyhow if anyone was thinking about buying a card I definitely recommend this card from the guys at PC-DTV, including Jens their Sales Manager and Kevin (in Korea) one of the software developers.
 http://www.pc-dtv.com/



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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[Gregg Lengling]

By the way here's what that card can do:
  HiDTV Pro Features

   Watch/ Record HDTV/SDTV (ATSC standard)    Watch/ Record OTA or Cable TV (NTSC standard)  
   TitanTV Electronic Program Guide    Enhanced Input / Output
   D-VHS Recording & Playback support    Still Capture / Pause / Zoom
   Graphical On Screen Display (OSD)    Sophisticated Graphical User Interface
   Full featured  Remote Control System    AC-3 Digital Audio
   5 sec, 30 sec, 1 min & 5 min FF/FW    TP File Manager (Split, Merge & List .tp files)
 
And it supports these operating systems: Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP

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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[kjnorman]

Gregg,

What speed hard drives do you need to record HD?  Are 5400rpm drives quick enough. or do you need 7200rpm drives?

Kerry

[Gregg Lengling]

Below I've listed the hardware requirements, I haven't seen anyone on the User BBS that's had any drive problems.  I'm sure a faster drive would be better but I'm sure someone out there is using 5400 rpm drives...but I'll post the question onthe board and see what answer I get.

Hardware System Requirements

   Intel® Pentium®II Celeron™ 333MHz or higher
   64M RAM or higher
   IBM® PC or 100% compatible
   One PCI 2.1 slot
   CD ROM drive
   50MB available free hard disk space
   Microsoft® Windows® 98 SE or Me™, Windows® 2000, Windows® XP


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[Gregg Lengling]

Here's the answer.....so I don't see a problem with your computer and drive.

HDTV requires about 2.5 MByte/s. Any half decent modern IDE HD should be capable of over 20 MByte/s write speed. The drive would still be fast enough spinning at 1000 rpm.

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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[mcq]

To everything Gregg has said about the HiDTV... Ditto, 'cept I had no problems taping (ha-recording) since I received it. I am looking forward to the new software. though...

[Gregg Lengling]

Want a copy, I can email it to ya..only if you have high speed (cable/dsl), it's bigggggggggggggggggggggggggggg.


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[mcq]

If you would not mind....

mcq@ultraserv.net is DSL
mcq@mc-hugh.com is T1 (But the server here sux)

I have Ameritech DSL at home......

Thanx in advance.....

Patrick K. McHugh

P.S. How's recording working out??

[Gregg Lengling]

Which operating system driver do you need??

[P a u l]

tick-tick-tick bling! tick-tick-tick bling!

This is the sound of my typewriter as I type up a bill for lummox and mcq for recording copywrighted material.

tick-tick-tick bling! tick-tick-tick bling!

Oh, yeah. Please don't say I should bill the KOREAN manufactures of the card. I'm sure they included some sort of discalimer and plus our American laws probably won't hold up on Korean court.

tick-tick-tick bling! tick-tick-tick bling!

Maybe this thread should be deleted. Recording Copywrighted material is illegal!!!!

[This message has been edited by P a u l (edited 10-31-2002).]

[MesaV]

Thank you mother!

[Pat]

 

Originally posted by P a u l:
Recording Copywrighted material is illegal!!!!

But its not illegal for personal use.  Its called the "fair use" doctrine, I believe.

[mcq]

I was wondering about that.. Of course, I record copyrighted material all of the time... So does my wife as she is into General Hospital...

What I do NOT do is record HiDef to a distributable media for sale or trade.

And I do not fast forward through the HiDef (!?) commercials, so I am an ideal recorder person.

I believe what might have been assumed is that we are trading the recorded material. I was looking for Greg to send me a copy of the software to run our wonderful cards. While I assume that this also is copyrighted, I also assume that using it to make my card function would give me license to receive said copyrighted beta drivers for the HiDTV card.

[Gregg Lengling]

Ah but I don't have the capability to take my HiDef recordings and put it in a distributal media for sale.....a dvd on my PC will only hold 30 minutes of HiDef and it would have to be loaded back on the hard=drive and run through the software and card to play.....so it's only MCQ and I trading programs.....right?/......not really could you see me sending mcq a 20 gig email attachment


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[mcq]

I coulda recorded gladiator this weekend and sent someone the hard drive in the mail.... ROFLOL