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My anecdotal evidence is better than your anecdotal evidence :-)<br>
<br>
No, this does have all the signs of a problem with interacting with
other hardware. But, I've had my HD-3000 in two different computers,
and connected to four different cable systems plus OTA systems in two
different regions. No problems. So the OP shouldn't count it out just
yet.<br>
<br>
My CPU load when recording analog is between 5% and 7%, which hardly
seems exceptional. It still records fine even if the rest of the
system is under load. The biggest disadvantage in my opinion is the
fact that recordings are larger. But, disk space is cheap, and there's
always transcoding.<br>
<br>
For reference: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://amsa.info/hardware.xhtml">http://amsa.info/hardware.xhtml</a><br>
<br>
--Geoff Mishkin <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:gmishkin@bu.edu"><gmishkin@bu.edu></a><br>
<br>
<br>
Rod Smith wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid200704161252.14097.mythtv@rodsbooks.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Monday 16 April 2007 02:02, Geoff Mishkin wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I use the pcHDTV HD-3000 which I highly recommend.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I couldn't disagree more, particularly for digital cable use. I've got two
pcHDTV 3000s, and neither can reliably tune a digital cable (QAM) signal. At
best, they work for about half an hour when the computer is first turned on,
but then they begin glitching out, until the signal is so degraded it's
unwatchable by an hour or so in. By "unwatchable," by the way, I don't
mean "an annoying video glitch every few seconds;" I mean "the signal is so
bad that you're lucky to get a second or two of clear audio and video every
minute, with artifacts so bad you can't make out what's on the screen for the
rest of the time, and MythTV reports a 1-hour recording is actually 25
minutes long." I've replaced one of these cards with an AVerMedia AVerTVHD
A180, which produces clean digital recordings, although it doesn't have an
NTSC tuner.
This is a known problem with the pcHDTV 3000, but it interacts with other
hardware in the computer, so some people encounter it but others don't. I've
tried swapping quite a few components, and I've tried my cards in two
different computers, with no luck.
For the OP's purposes, too, the pcHDTV 3000 (and I believe the 5500) use
framegrabber analog tuners, which increases the CPU load when recording
analog signals. IMHO, it's better to go with two tuner cards, one analog and
one digital (or more if you want more than that).
</pre>
</blockquote>
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