[wplug] USB video capture recommendations

[beer at cmu.edu]

I dont have a 950 but I have an internal from Hauppage that I absolutely
love.  I also have the pinnacle stick.

The pinnacle stick is obviously convenient in terms of portability being
very small and compact.  This also has its downside because much like pen
drives, its pretty easily dislodged from the port.  The antenna that came
with this device is just a simple mag based rabbit ear antenna.  Lacks any
power whatsoever and the tuner in the stick is not very good.  The stick
works fairly well when connected to my giant roof antenna but still pales in
comparison to the signal achieved by using the roof antenna with a post-1990
TV.  I've also never gotten the antenna to work properly.  The software has
a 'test' mode which easily works with the remote but it never works when I
actually want to change the channel.  The stick seemed to perform reasonable
when connected to cable and when I wasnt using the accompanying software.

the problem with the sticks seems to be the tuner capability.  i have
several different types of VR devices and the sticks always perform the
worse.  I have one that is USB but not a stick....its a tabletop device with
USB out.  This performs much better than the pinnacle stick but less so than
the hauppage.  If I remember, I'll dig it up and get you the brand.

At any rate, my $.02 is to avoid the usb stick versions unless you have damn
strong incoming signals, like from a cable drop.

Also should point out the 950 is not HD compat.

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:42 PM, Vance Kochenderfer <vkochend at nyx.net>
wrote:

> "James O'Kane" <jo2y at midnightlinux.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm looking for a USB video capture device. I can and have been doing
> > searches, what I'm asking the list for is any personal experience.
>
> Not my personal experience, but someone else's...
>
> The July issue of Linux Journal looked at several HDTV devices.
> The two USB ones they reviewed were the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick
> and the Hauppage WinTV-HVR-950.  Both are based on the Empiatech
> EM2880 chipset which they got working with the development version
> of the v4l-dvb drivers (don't know its status regarding mainline).
>
> They gave the Pinnacle slightly higher marks for coming with a
> better antenna and a remote control.  Composite in was not
> specifically reviewed.
>
> Sorry, but that's about as close to helpful as I can get on this.
>
> Vance Kochenderfer        |  "Get me out of these ropes and into a
> vkochend at nyx.net          |   good belt of Scotch"    -Nick Danger
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