donkeed wrote:
zetaprime wrote:
Thanks for the posts, Donkeed. Now that I have one of those infernal HDPVR's myself I can appreciate how much time and trouble it must take you to turn that ridiculous file format the HDPVR puts out into AVIs or anything else that's useful. They must have chosen that file format on purpose to make it difficult for people to post stuff on the net. After attempting to convert some of those files myself I gave up because of the time it took and the poor quality of what I ended up with. You gotta have way more patience than I do to make those nice AVI's. I end up just keeping the raw files unedited since there's not even a decent way to edit the damn things without re-encoding. I'm glad that the box allows for some way to get HDTV from my Dish receiver to my computer, but damn, they (Hauppauge) sure picked a clumsy way to do it. When something better comes out that Hauppauge box will quickly find its way to the dumpster.
I've got a pretty efficient encoding and uploading method down with handbrake.
Editing is another story. I agree the files are a pain to work with, but I'm still holding out for a good frame accurate h.264 editor to do everything in one shot. I love the HD PVR even despite the uneditable files. Remember, before this the only thing available to get HD resolution from component input was thousands of dollars. I'd say it's pretty revolutionary Hauppauge managed to put a product out for $250.
I understand what you're saying, but at that price it's obviously intended for general consumer use, and it's anything but easy to use. And the software bundled with it is pitiful. One would expect when buying a product called HD PVR that there would be software in the box that would allow you to use it in a way that a consumer would expect to be able to..i.e. software with a Tivo-like interface, with program guide, etc. Instead you just get pointed to SageTV where you have to buy additional software to give you the functionality that was supposed to be in the box. I went the sagetv route but find that the HD PVR isn't too reliable when working with that software. The recording process tends to go in and out (if you watch the box whilst recording you'll see the light going on and off) so that you end up with a very incomplete recording. Only with the bundled software does the HDPVR record an entire program reliably even if it often crashes once the recording is done. Again, I'm glad that the product allows you to get HD into your computer, albeit with considerable difficulty, for a reasonable cost, but I think the software could have been a LOT better.
I hope there will be updates to the drivers and the software that make the thing more stable..and perhaps give the user more choice as to the file format that it puts out.
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