Manufacturer : HAUPPAUGE
Model : 1414
ASIN : B004OVE2B4
Price : 169.99$
Lowet Price : 134.88$(Discount 20.654156126831%
See Special Offers
Amazon.com Product Description
The Hauppage Colossus is a high-definition video recorder for making real-time H.264-compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. This HD PVR has a PCIe computer card interface and records component video (YCrCb) from video game consoles and cable TV and satellite set top boxes, with a built-in IR blaster to automatically change TV channels for scheduled recordings. Colossus also has an HDMI input port, so you can record HD video at up to 1080i from a un-encrypted HDMI source.
 |
|
 |
In addition to recording TV shows, you can record your video game play to demonstrate tips and tricks, or just show off your skills to your friends. You can also use Colossus to turn your old VCR tapes into Blu-ray discs. Record your video tapes using Colossus and then burn Blu-ray-formatted DVD disks on your PC.
High-Definition Quality Recordings on Your Schedule
At long last, a personal video recorder, or PVR, that offers high quality recordings of high-definition television shows. Now you can start building a personal archive of your favorite high definition TV programs without losing the broadcast quality.
At the heart of the HD-PVR is an H.264 high-definition encoder that's built-in for high-performance, high-quality TV recordings at up to 1080i resolution, 720p or VGA/D1. The box includes a component video input for use with most high-definition cable TV and satellite TV receivers, as well as optical or stereo audio inputs. (Audio is recorded using AC-3 encoding from SPDIF in 2 or 5.1 channel audio / Digital Dolby.)
The HD-PVR records in the AVCHD format, which can be used to burn Blu-ray DVD discs. Two hours of high-definition recordings, recorded at 5 Mbits/sec, can be burnt onto a standard 4.7 GB DVD-R or DVD-RW disk for playback on any Blu-ray DVD player. (You have the option of recording at data rates from 1 Mbs to 13.5Mbs, constant and variable bit rate.)
The recorder also includes Hauppauge's WinTV scheduler that lets you schedule your TV recordings, and a built-in IR blaster that automatically changes TV channels for your scheduled recordings. And for even greater convenience and performance, the HD-PVR features an audio / video component video loop so you can record and watch your television at the same time.
Convert Your Home Videos to Blu-ray DVDs
If you've been wondering what to do with all your home videos, the HD-PVR has the answer. Thanks to the included standard definition composite and S-Video inputs, you can plug your VCR directly into the card and record your old home video tapes into an AVCHD format, which you can then burn onto a DVD for playback on your Blu-ray DVD player.
Also included with the Colossus is Arcsoft's "ShowBiz" for video recording, authoring, and burning of your TV recordings onto a Blu-ray DVD compatible disc.
What's in the Box
Hauppage Colossus PCIe card, IR Blaster transmitter cable, component video cable set, audio cable set, USB cable, and 5V power supply. Also includes the following bundled software applications: Arcsoft "ShowBiz" software, and Hauppauge WinTV Scheduler.
Which High Definition Personal Video Recorder is Right for You?
| Type | Component Video | Optical Audio | RCA Audio | HDMI Input | PCIe | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 1414 Colossus | Internal |  | | | | |
 1212 HD-PVR | External | | | |
Best part, this card does all of the video encoding, meaning your PC's CPU hardly does anything at all. The quality that it gives is incredible with the file size being relatively small. Colossus gets captured using software such as WinTV and Arcsoft. WinTV records into a format of .ts. You can easily import the .ts file into adobe premiere if you rename .ts to .mpg. No problem.
You can record pretty much anything except for PS3 through HDMI, but you can record Xbox 360 and PC through HDMI.
Pros:
Hardware Encoder (No CPU Usage)
Excellent Quality
Great Software
Video and Audio are in sync
Cons:
None.
I ended up getting the Hauppauge HDPVR about 2 months ago and was quite happy with it. I happen to come across the Hauppauge Colossus purely by accident, and fortunately for me, was able to return the HD PVR before the 30 days were up. My main reasons for keeping the Colossus were:
1)It costs less
2)It's an internal PCI-e card
3)It can record at a higher bitrate
4)It can record from an unencrypted HDMI source
First of all, let me just say that I only use the Colossus to capture shows off my Directv HD DVR. I don't use the WinTv app, I don't use the IR blaster, or any of the other options for tuning tv stations. It's simply my HD capture solution. For my needs, it works great. It comes with software (Arcsoft Showbiz) for recording, editing, and burning your footage to disk.
I only use it to record footage to my hard drive. For editing purposes, I use Videoredo TVSuite V4 so I don't have to re-encode my edited footage. With the Showbiz software, it always wants to re-encode unless you're only chopping off the beginning and the end of the file.
For making my final output file that gets burnt to disk I use a free program called MultiAVCHD coupled with ImageBurn (another free program). I burn the file to a Blu ray blank (BD-R) and it comes out with full menus and chapter menus as well. The Showbiz burning program will only let you burn to DVD or DVD-DL disks. It won't work with Blu rays. By using BD-Rs, I can record nearly 3 hours of 1920 x 1080 HD at 18 mbps onto a single 25 GB disk.
The recording quality is excellent. It's maybe slightly nicer that the Hauppauge HD PVR (not by much). The biggest improvement I've found is that when I'm recording AC3 audio with the Colossus, if the source feed has a dropout, which happens occasionally, I don't lose nearly 10 seconds of video feed like the HD PVR use to. That's big for me.
The great thing about the Colossus is that it is a hardware encoder. It does all the heavy lifting itself and leaves your CPU free to do other things at the same time. The only thing you might have trouble with on an older computer is playing back the recorded H.264 file. However, you can still capture with it no problem.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with my purchase.
Pros:
* Easy install (installed the card, loaded the drivers/software off of the included CD and it was up and running)
* Captured video is of very good quality
* Large number of supported inputs (Composite Video, Component Video, HDMI, Optical/toslink Audio, Digital Coaxial Audio, Analog Audio)
* Can be made to work with W7MC with the use of DVBLink (a software add-on from DVBLogic at a cost of $40)
Cons:
* Third-party software is needed to integrate with W7MC
* Not really a Hauppauge issue - but DVBLink software does not support composite video when used to integrate device with W7MC (only HD sources)
* Practically no printed documentation included with product - all documentation is on the included CD.
No comments:
Post a Comment