have any of you tried this tvcard ? do u know if it works with btwincap, dscaler and the other good softwares around ? thank u in advance

I just bought a Cinergy 4oo TV Stereo card and have been trying to get it to work properly all day. It does not work with Dscaler. Dscaler starts up and says "No suitable hardware" and then shuts down. I don't think it works with btwincap drivers, since it appears it hasn't a BT-chip, but a Philips SAA 7143 chipset (according to the manual). While mounting it, I did not see a Connexant chip either, just a massive Philips tuner component. :-) It is delievered with WinDVR 1.8 for capturing in mpeg-1 and 2, but although I have a new computer (only 6 months old Athlon XP 1900+, 768 MB Ram and fast hard drives) I get dropped frames while capturing. I am pretty experienced in capturing (this is my third card), but to be sure, I installed the latest via-4-in-one, direct X, you name it. Still, the capturing in 720 x 576 does not go as smoothly as I had expected. I can capture in full resolution mpeg-2 without any dropped frames with my other capture cards (Aver TV Studio and Matrox G450 eTV), so there's something fishy about the Terratec card. It doesn't perform as advertised. Capturing with the Terratec application is a joke. As soon as I hit the reord button, the audio disappears. Watching TV is unbearable, as the application doesn't deinterlace properly. After a few more experiements to see if I can get it to work, I am pretty sure I will return it to the shop. /Swan

After a reinstall, I'm back. :-) The re-formatting of my drives and fresh installation of Windows made mpeg-recording a little more plesant. The captured files jerk slightly less, but it's still there. I've checked all the usual things (IRQ's, etcetera) and installed all the latest of everything, but it's no good. Perhaps this card dislikes being in the company of some other hardware I have. The jerking is very slight and appears randomly. It could be missed, unless one looks carefully. But it's there and it's more than I can put up with. The non-working deinterlacing while watching TV with the Terratec application was solved by the reinstallation. It's not perfectly deinterlaced, but it looks OK to me. I took your advice, Seldon, and tried IuVCR and with it, I can capture avi with HuffYUV compression in full DVD size without any frame drops! Using Terratec's application, it sometimes works, sometimes not, and the audio gets shut off when I press the "rec" button. :-( The jerkiness of the avi's captured with Terratec's software is not caused by a playback problem. Going through them, frame by frame, in VirtualDub reveals drops. Not so with the clips from IuVCR. :-) I also had the chance to try the tuner. I did not get a scratching sound while changing channels. /Swan

New Drivers 

Seldon, thanks a bunch for the info! I downloaded and installed the new drivers, Terratec TV software and WinDVR 2. I was wondering if you could do me a favor? I know you can't capture in full size mpeg-2 using WinDVR, but could you create a custom profile and see if you can select an audio bitrate of 384, please? The drop-down box only lets me go as high as 224, 384 is not available! It was, in WinDVR 1.8, so I'm wondering if Intervideo changed this in version 2.0? Also, I've discovered something. When I examine the avi-files I capture with the card (they have some sort of weird motion, looks like frame drops, but the capturing software has not reported frame drops) I noticed one serious thing: the captured clips look weird because the frame rate is approximately only 12 frames per second. Not 25! I also tested capturing in various resolutions and found this: Capturing in 352 x 288 works fine (I get 25 fps). Capturing in SVCD resolution (480x576) worked fine too. But as soon as I go to full horizontal resolution (720 x 576), the frame rate drops to about 12. Sigh! /Swan

Swan, Which colourspace are you using? I've had some weird results capturing in RGB32, but as long as i stay in YUY2 everything works fine. Are you sure that this isn't a playback problem? Huff and uncompressed is very demanding in 720x576. Does the captures from your aver card playback allright using the same capture settings? -Seldon

hi there! my brother finally decided to buy a tv-card, but he's not sure about the new terratec cinergy400 (stereo tv, radio, remote controller,60euro) and the Hauppuage Wintv primio( mono tv, radio, remote controller, 75euro). the hauppauge card is older but it uses the old and famous BT chip that can be used with so many apps. on the contrary, the terratec has a stereo tuner and costs less. the short-term-target is capturing from vhs/sat (that is, from the videoin and NOT from the tuner) at resolution adequate for SVCD/Divx conversion (or maybe full Pal), but in the future he could start using the integrated tv-tuner. what do u suggest ? i've read about your problems, and we want to capture decently, without framedrops, errors and so on...