popper
Rated PG
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 Posted: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 21:40:40 Post Subject: |
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| Big Bruin wrote: |  | Using Windows Media Center (and other popular scheduling programs) the The AVerMedia AVerTV Purity 3D MCE 500 worked flawlessly, and would record two channels at the same time. I did not have to specify which tuner to select, as the software recognized the card had the capability of two tuners, and would auto select the available TV tuner. - The Review |
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no disrespect but how can any review possibly give
such an antiquated tec TV card a 4.5 out of 5 ? given as it all been done before and NOTHING new here.
yes perhaps 2 years ago or even at a stretch 1 year ago, but the fact is all these companys are all just trying to milk the last drops of profit out of the analog tv markets that woulnt exist soon as all the transmitters get switched off (at least in the UK +).
some facts for the average readers that might come accross this review and MBoard (as i just did, reading your Lilliput 7" TFT LCD Touch Screen - 07/14/04 as it happens).
this TV card review/card is dated March 31, 2006,
not 2005 or 2004 when such a card might be werthwhile.
the so called buzz for a very long time now has been
Mpeg4 and in fact the newer Mpeg4 -part10-, aka AVC, aka H.264.
H.264 Encoder chips have for a very long time existed that would fit very nicely on one of these
TV cards and more to the point at the same cost or even cheaper than these old hat Mpeg2 encoders you find on this and other OEM's analog TV cards, were is the inovation, people ?.
i dont even see mention in the review if this rehash of old tec TV card can do simple PIP(picure-in-picture) as found on some very old external composit video input boxs from the late 1980's/early 90's, so i take it that it cant in fact even do that basic end user requirment/want.
now dont get me wrong, adding 'Co-Processors' such
as the Mpeg2 Encoder is a very good thing to take the load off the main CPU and hence means you can
use/get away with a far weaker Personal computer,
infact Co-Processors(audio/Video etc) ,DMA(Direct Memory Access) AND multi-tasking have been used and made popular by the Amiga 1000 way back in 1985, so again the benifits are well known.
its 2006 people, we will need Mpeg4 -part10/AVC/H264
Co-Processors on the TV cards not just old-hat Mpeg2.
a quick search shows that even in 2003 you could get H.264 decoder chips using cheap FPGA no less.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/3704.cfm
"Sand Video to provide a H.264 chip
13 January 2003 20:06 by Ketola
Sand Video Inc. demonstrated a high-definition (1,920 x 1,080i), real-time H.264 decoder implemented on two Xilinx Inc. field-programmable gate arrays at the Consumer Electronics Show last week. The company promised to deliver commercial samples of a silicon implementation in Q4 of 2003"
in 2004 you could get industry standard H.264 Encoding (again using cheap off the shelf FPGA.
http://www.ateme.com/products/h264.php
"ATEME delivers H.264/MPEG4-AVC technologies for end-to-end streaming solutions.
Encoders, decoders and streaming IP integrated with 3rd party DRM has been demonstrated at IBC (September 2004, Amsterdam). Our technology is available and already adopted by customers, in Broadcast, Broadband and Corporate markets, in live SD main profile encoders and in IP Set-Top Boxes for H.264 DSP decoder." "Our technology is available on PC, DSP and FPGA"
to Encode CIF/DVD etc video at better than realtime
speed you could today (the last 6 months for AGP, even longer for PCi express)use
Radeon X1300 256MB DDR2 AGP 11070-00-20 £76.36
Radeon X1600 PRO 256Mb DDR2 AGP DVI TVO Retail (11076-00-20) £90.47 and their AVIVO encoding SW
and at such a good price so the analog TV offerings
so far are very weak and at a $100+ are non starters
exept for the unwary non tec end users that are getting a very raw deal from the tec info sites and dealers alike, a single analog pci TV card can be had for £18 today so 2 could serve simular to the reviewed card but for the (near?)non-existance of the software that would control it, i dont beleave you can justyfy a 4.5 mark just because finally some company(s) has taken this old tec and put it into
a package that the unsuspecting user might buy into
for no other reason than they havent been told/educated/researched by the tec/reviwers such as this and other sites of todays options.
i can just imagine the replys about how somthing cant be done and how software H.264 decoders take a lot of CPU grunt as it were, so ill just point out this interesting fact and say if the coders have the right attitude and are willing to learn the skills
that many demo-coders already know then end-users might finally start getting some true inovation in both SW and hardware, rather than getting milked for every penny.
please read the full thread below to get a good grasp
of whats really possible and look forward to the upcoming Software H.264 encoder from these guys.
on that note readers might be interested in trying out the CoreAVC H.264 decoder especially if you dont have a spare $4000 machine handy, infact if you dont happen to have any 1280*720*25 1250 Kbps or better trailers handy right now
you can try these http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=761387#post761387
on a spare Athlon XP 2400+, the Ice Age 2 clip in the url plays rather nicely at 25 fps with an old Nvidia 440 and better on an ati 9550.
given the facts above i have to ask were are todays
TV cards that can infact take both Analog and
DTV-T,DTV-C and DTV-S signals and pass through the already Mpeg2 TS (transport stream) or re-Encode to
the now and future Mpeg4-part10/AVC/H264 that has and indeed is being used TODAY, plus H264 will be far better for people that want to use IP-TV type
multicasting to their other PC's in their home lan using something like the free VLC player/encoder app
to watch TV/content anywere they like even wireless 11G home networks, i tryed streaming h264 and it works for me rather nicely, now all i need is a reasonable TV card that has a h264 Encoder chip intigrated and ill start advocating that card to all my friends and less informs readers the world over LOL.
i suspect whole the people keep getting conned into using the old tec and dont know the longtime buzz about H264 then nothing will change, whats needed is to send a clear message to the TV card makers that
H264 encoding ability is what the average user will want in any new and inovative TV cards they produce next or we shall see business as usual and perhaps finally get h264 TV ecodeing in some far off TV card
as they try and catch up with the likes of ATI and their X1000 series Video cards.....
just some thought for you to consider, with respect.
Popper, south manchester, UK. |
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