Need help finding a good low profile hardware decoder possibly with ATSC

[hokuto]

Hey everyone,

I have a low profile case so need a low profile pci express capture card.  Can anyone recommend a good one for me possibly with an ATSC tuner as well for HD?  I've had two in the past, I had the PVR-1250 from Hauppage but the quality was so so, I then had the ATI TV wonder 550 I think it was and same thing, quality was okay but no where near as clear on S-Video from my satellite as the TiVo is or as directly to the TV.  So I'm looking for one that has great quality for S-Video.  Thanks!

[The Dude]

I get very good quality over the svideo on my HVR-1600 and it can also record OTA and QAM HD. I would also just say to keep in mind that a bad looking picture is not always the fault of the capture card. It may be any number of things. A lot of the time it's more of a playback issue and has to do with what codecs you're using.

[Craig]

Could you be comparing a digital picture to an analog picture? I'm assuming your satellite feed is digital, and remember that when you go to the tuner via svideo you are going to analog.

I'll recommend the HVR-2250

[Miller]

I 2nd the 2250. It has 2 digital and 2 analog tuners, comes in low-profile, and fits in a pci-express x1 slot.

[hokuto]

I'll check those ones out thanks.  I know it could be the codec used as well, it's just like I said with my TiVo, it looks identical to if I connect the dish to the TV with Svideo, or dish to the TiVo with svideo it's the same.  With the ATI and the HVR-1200 I tried so many codecs, everything was almost blurred, like it would round the edges out on fonts on screen and they weren't sharp.  I realize it's going to analog by connecting with SVideo.

I'm just realizing I may have a problem now though, the line running to my TV currently is connected to my OTA antenna giving me the OTA HD, but if I move the satellite up there then I'll have to use that same coax cable, so I don't think I'll be able to get both anyway unless I do some major rewiring :S

One last thing what's the difference with the HVR-1600 and HVR-2250?  Are both hardware decoders, as I know the HVR-1250 or whatever it was I had before wasn't.  IT still ran great but would prefer hardware.  Also just to give more info, I'm not sure if these are overkill.  Basically I need the satellite on the Svideo so that's the one analog in, then I was hoping to have the OTA on one ATSC coax in.  I don't need dual analog tuners since satellite is one channel at a time.  If it's dual digital tuners does that mean I can split the OTA signal and do 2 at once?  I'm thinking that may be overkill since I get 15 or less OTA HD channels and everything that I PVR is on premium channels only on the dish.  I just wanted the OTA option so if a show happens to be on HD I'll record from that, but I don't really think I need dual tuners for OTA unless the cost isn't much higher.

[The Dude]

One last thing what's the difference with the HVR-1600 and HVR-2250?  Are both hardware decoders, as I know the HVR-1250 or whatever it was I had before wasn't.  IT still ran great but would prefer hardware.

The 2250 is a dual tuner version of the 1600 or 1800. The 1600 and 1800s are labeled as dual tuners as well but only to the extent that they have one analog and one digital tuner on them. The 2250 can record one analog while recording another or one digital while recording another or one analog and one digital at the same time. Yes both are hardware encoding cards.