The new hardware is the Hauppauge HD PVR. I was planning on getting this item, anyway, but when my SlingBox Pro HD decided to brick itself, well, I knew I had to get it ASAP.
So, Friday morning after work, I headed out to Best Buy. Took a while to find the product. It was in the computer section, not the TV/Home Theater section. But it was well hidden. So, $213 later, I had it in my grubby little hands (after tax, it retails for $200).
Brought it home and set it up. I haven't used the component cables it came with, yet. I had the cables already running to the HDTV from my SlingBox, so I just used them as the output. But, good Christmas the cables they packed with this thing are long and sturdy. Also, since I am not planning on using it with anything but my game consoles, I didn't bother hooking up the IR Blaster for remote control access. It's easy enough to turn it on from it's front facing power switch.
Next I needed software to record from it, since the software it comes with is Windows only, and I am on an iMac. There are no free versions that work with the product, though. So I had a choice between two pay products.
The first and cheaper version is HDPVRCapture, which is written by an engineer at Hauppauge (I guess the company won't make native Mac software). It runs well enough, but it requires another third party software solution to view the incoming footage while you are recording, VLC Player. Granted, I already have VLC Player, so that wasn't a huge issue. However, it did cause VLC Player to crash a few times while I tried the demo (which allows 2 minutes of recording each recording). There was also a 4 or 5 second lag between what was on the screen and what was on the game that was very noticeable. While I dealt with the same long lag while using my SlingBox Pro HD, I remember how much of a pain it was to watch back and forth to see when to stop recording.
The other software was EyeTV 3. Unfortunately, there was no demo to try out. So, I instead went and looked at videos recorded with it as well as looked up any comparison reviews between the EyeTV software and the HDPVRCapture software. Everything pointed out that the two programs worked pretty much equally well at recording videos. But EyeTV had two major advantages. First, it has a built in viewer, so no additional third party software is needed. Second, the lag between what you are playing and what is on the computer is only 1 second. That's a huge difference.
The prices of the software are pretty different, though. HDPVR Capture is only $30 and you can use the software in demo mode for 2 minutes of footage at a time before you pay. EyeTV 3 is $80, with no demo available. After trying the demo mode of HDPVRCapture and having it crash VLC Player more than a few times, though, I decided the more expensive software was the way to go.
Don't think of this as me saying EyeTV 3 is the only way to go, however. Your mileage may vary; and if you feel that spending an extra $50 isn't worth it if you get a HD PVR with a Mac, then by all means check out and use HDPVRCapture. I just happened to have the money to spend.
Let me just say... WOW! The diference in video quality from my old setup of using the SlingBox Pro HD and one of two screen capture programs is like night and day. I'm now able to get 59.97 fps recording instead of the 30 fps max I could get before (while still keeping the file sizes of the raw movie files manageable); colors and darks are crisper; and the ability to automagically export to h.264 MP4s without taxing my system to death (the HD PVR has a built in h.264 encoder) is a godsend. So, now not only do I get higher quality videos, but the are exported much faster, too.
I also am trying out Adobe Premiere CS 5 over Final Cut Pro 7. And, so far, I like it better. It renders faster, it converts some things in the background so you don;t have to render as often, and it lets you preview most things without needing to render them, first. The only problem I had was figuring out how to do voice overs, at first. But once that was out of the way, I found it just as easy to use as FCP7 with my menial knowledge of video editing; only projects will be done faster.
So, UTGR is back up and running. The next major review I do will be Gears of War 3 for the Xbox 360. I know Batman: Arkham City will be another major review I do, as well. But there may be some other reviews hitting in between.
Here are some sample videos using the new setup:
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