Hauppuage HD PVR

Drunzer · 21 Jun 2011 at 17:43

Hi,

Seen a post on here recently about the Blackmagic Intensity Pro which sparked me to ask this question. I play a lot of games and I'd love to put some footage online of me playing and possibly do some reviews if I ever found the time for it, it would be no problem for me to buy a Hauppauge HD PVR but my question is will my laptop be able to handle the recordings? The recommended spec is below from the official Hauppauge website:

System Requirements
Processor Requirements (minimum):
Dual core CPU.
Microsoft® Windows® 7 (32/64bit), Vista (32/64bit) or Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Graphics with 256MB memory (or greater)
Note: the playback of high definition H.264 requires a fast CPU and at least 256MB of graphics memory.
Sound card.

My laptop spec is:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 (2.2 GHZ)
3GB RAM
Nvidia Geforce 8400M GS

The question is really with the card, a search online and on the official Nvidia website shows it has 256mb. When I go to properties of card it says dedicated video memory of 128mb but then total available graphics memory says 1406mb and shared system memory says 1278mb.

Can my laptop run this? If not, is there a way of scaling the quality in which the HD PVR records so that it could run it? The real pain is I have a desktop upstairs which is more than capable of running it but my PS3 and TV are downstairs so I don't wake the missus at night =(

Any info at all would be much appreciated, thank you all.

Drunzer · 22 Jun 2011 at 01:52

Been researching for a while there's not as much info on this as I would like, seems to be more questions than answers out there unfortunately. From what I have gathered it seems the playback process is much more draining than the recording process, would it be possible for me to record in high quality to my laptop and then move the file and do the edit/rendering etc on my desktop?

By the way if this needs moved mods, sorry. I thought I would try here first as I know a lot of the guys record their footage I know most of the SFIV peeps do anyway so I was wondering if anybody encountered a similar situation to what I am in at the moment.

bloodline76 · 22 Jun 2011 at 02:44

I would have thought that it would be fine. I think the spec is more for your play back than recording.

Talbs13 · 22 Jun 2011 at 08:48

Where is the best place to buy it. Anyone know?

GregI · 22 Jun 2011 at 14:55

Specs are fine. The Hauppauge actually does all the capturing/encoding for you. The only thing your computer needs to do is write the file to hard disk.

I actually dumped my Hauppauge though. I just hate the fact you are limited to using the ArcSoft software which a device like the Intensity Pro is not. If you can manage arranging your gaming around your desktop PC, get the Intensity and never look back. It gives you so much more freedom and hey, you can even do lossless capture using huffyuv if you wish.