Will a USB HD TV Tuner work with G4?

enigma9o7 · 06-09-2007, 08:40 PM

Topic says it all, just want to be sure. Something like this:
http://www.hauppage.com/pages/products/data_hvr950.html

DarquePervert · 06-10-2007, 07:03 AM

Will it work with the PC hardwre? There should be no reason why it doesn't.

Will it work witht he StreetDeck software? I don't believe it will.

enigma9o7 · 06-10-2007, 11:25 AM

Thanks, that's kinda what I figured. I assumed I'd have to use the tuners bundled software, but the hardware was my concern. The G4 CPU is a few hundred mhz below their reccommended minimum (assuming C7 is centrino equivilent). But maybe since G4 is only 800x480 resolution, that would reduce cpu load enough for it to work...

RipNRun · 06-20-2007, 12:31 PM

Anyone else get an HD tuner working well with the G4? I set up the KWorld one, but it was a bit too CPU-intensive for me to be comfortable with it. The reception was good, but forcing the monitor to 800x600 caused me to lose batches of frames.

I amazed that this set up requires so much in the way of system resources. I suppose we need a USB tuner setup with onboard decoder in hardware? Anyone know of something like this?

--Rip

enigma9o7 · 06-20-2007, 11:23 PM

I did some more research on this after initially posting... The free program here is supposed to be good for hdtv on slow computers.... give it a try and tell me if it works for you... www.watchhdtv.net ...I'm quite curious.

I still haven't bought the HDTV tuner yet. I have a kworld card in my home computer tho and it works fine for hdtv and analog, but I've read hauppage is generally better, so I think that's the way I'll go.

drakino · 06-20-2007, 11:47 PM

I have a USB HDTV tuner I use at home that I could try on the Infill, but my guess is that it will simply be too slow to deal with it well. If I have some time this weekend, I'll try it.

RipNRun · 06-20-2007, 11:53 PM

drakino,

let me know how it goes. I already returned the KWorld USB HD tuner--didn't try anything but the software that comes with it.

Now I'm curious about this watchhdtv.net software....

samail · 01-15-2008, 10:53 AM

Hi all,

Its been sometime since the last posting. Anyone has any luck with USB TV tuner?

I have been out of luck with Pinnacle Hybrid USB Stick and Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2. For both, I am using the software that comes with them. Its simply too CPU loading.

Perhaps someone can enlighten their findings.

Sam

enigma9o7 · 01-15-2008, 02:39 PM

I think it would still be worth trying that program I linked earlier; I don't think anyone has tested it yet with g4. Samail, feel free to give it a try, and if you do, please report your results! If our CPU can handle it, I'll buy the hvr950 myself.

samail · 01-29-2008, 09:27 AM

An update on my finding.

I have download software like WinDVR, PowerVCR, BeyondTV to try on my USB TV Tuner. The result is either it loads the CPU or it does not recognise the USB tuner. Some of these softwares that claim to be less CPU intensive depends on hardware decoding of the TV Card. I also downloaded Dscaler but there are too many settings to set. I gave up.

Another software that I try is ChrisTV. This software operates at around 60% to 80% of the CPU. The only down factor is, it only works for Analog channel.

In conclusion, Digital TV thru external USB tuner is a no-no for G4. Digital channel or HD channel need the CPU to decode them in MPEG2 or MPEG4 (correct me if I am wrong). This will in turn load up the CPU. It does not matter if the TV tuner has hardware decoding or not, as long as it is USB, it will utilise the CPU to decode the images.

Sam