-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Hi- > > We are trying to build a MythTV box. We're experienced enough with > Linux in general, but we have zero experience with Myth, PVR, > Linux Video, etc. Our first hurdle is buying the tuner. In any > case we only want to deal with stuff that has a good compatiblity > track record, so any recommendations are appreciated. We're > extremely not set on particular cards. I'd also appreciate if you > gave your best guess about price. (If you know of a good place to > buy, say that too) > > We care about good quality video at 480x480 from an analog cable. > For now we don't care about digital channels, HDTV or QAM. Our > existing hardware is a PIII/866/1GB RAM/ 250G HD with an Nvidia > Geforce2 GTS. I believe this Nvidia card supports some video > output acceleration; if it doesn't we can get a newer one. I have hardware of similar specifications (PIII 800mhz, 512mb ram, Nvidia FX5500 S-Video Out). > > 1. We're considering buying a Hauppauge WinTV-GO. This seems to > be $25 and very compatible. Is this a good card/good price? Are > there better ones? The WinTV-Go is not a bad choice, although with those machine specifications you might have decreased performance due to the software encoding it uses. I'm using the Hauppage PVR-150 with an onboard hardware MPEG-2 encoder. It's around $99 dollars at CompUSA. The reason for this choice was because the hardware encoder allows you to run MythTV on a fairly mediocre system -- You don't have to spend a ton on a fast processor with this card. Another benefit to purchasing this (or any hauppage PCI card) is the fact that the IVTV open source drivers are excellent (http://ivtv.sourceforge.net). I'm using the 0.3.x unstable series and they work great. > > 2. Would we have to buy a faster computer to have simultaneous > 480x480 playback with the GO? (Just a framegrabber, I think)? Yes most likely you would, unless you took my suggestion from above into consideration. > > 3. Would we have to buy a faster computer if we bought a card with > an encoder? No, I've proven that you don't have to. My system specifications are: - -- 1 PIII 800MHZ MATX - $0.00 (Took out of an old compaq machine) 2 256 SD Ram chips - $0.00 (Came with the board) 1 Hauppage PVR-150 (Nicely supported by the IVTV Drivers http://ivtv.sourceforge.net) ($99.99) 1 Belkin 802.11b Wireless card ($24.99) (Nicely supported by the ADM8211 drivers, for running mythfilldatabase and mythbrowser). 1 Nvidia Geforce FX5500 with S-video out ($59.99) - -- I'm running flawless live-tv, as well as beautiful recordings even after transcoding down to a 3500 kbps stream. > > 4. If we need a card with an encoder, we're thinking of a > Hauppauge PVR-250 or 350. These both seem to be $125, so we'd > probably get the PVR350. Are these good choices/prices? Are > there better ones? The PVR-150 has the great hardware encoding benefits of the 250 and 350 (MPEG2) but comes at a cheaper cost. It also comes with the 40+ button remote which is auto-detected by the LIRC drivers (www.lirc.org) as long as you don't buy the white box. If you buy the retail version (~$99) you'll get the remote with it. Here's a great tutorial which helped me get everything running perfectly (although I chose to run Slackware as opposed to Debian because I like to have control over my system): http://blog.eleith.com/eblog/?uid1=464&eblog1=1 Good luck, e-mail me if you have any questions or concerns. Or if you need help setting up your new system. > > Your help is greatly appreciated. > > Thanks, Jonathan - -Shawn > _______________________________________________ mythtv-users > mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDNspaDCV2NIijW9wRArC8AJ0RYQWCIuxJ4vqR8+MciZB3Tup1AQCeJK9W DQ9HycI8+AvhOWimghmnNSQ= =2AV5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users