Recording 4 Video Inputs Ast The Same Time?

[soyasauce]

The big problem with multi-channel security dvr software, is that they record in a proprietary codec format onto the harddrive, and without re-encoding or avi exporting, they cannot be easily used for post production editing.

I want to get a 4 channel Dvr card, and run four instances of ChrisTV to record off each channel. It can save onto the hdd as a friendly codec that software like Sony Vegas will like. If done correctly, ffdshow will allow many video files to be useable in Sony Vegas.

1.
Will ChrisTV work with the 4 channels in a 4 channel dvr card? I want to purchase a single card that has 4 inputs, because the small form factor computer I am using only has 1 Pci slot. Ideally anyone with a full length atx motherboard, can use 4 inexpensive WinTV cards.

2.
Should I buy a dvr card with hardware compression? Many encode in MPEG4 or H264, or would these features be bypassed as ChrisTV will just save the video with the cpu doing the encoding? If I already had the card, I'd be trying this, but since I do not, I would like to know if anyone here has tried what I am doing.

Thanks!

[Chris]

1. Depends, if the capture device installs a capture device for each input, you will be able to use ChrisTV PVR with each input. Note that you can't run 4 instances of ChrisTV, only 1. But you can record using the background recording feature from 4 capture devices at once.

2. ChrisTV has support for TV cards with MPEG 2 HW encoders and supports live preview (bypass the encoder) for most of them if you want to use it.