[mythtv-users] WinTV PVR Cards

Joseph A. Caputo jcaputo1 at comcast.net
Wed Jul 23 13:58:04 EDT 2003


> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at snowman.net]On Behalf Of Robert Empfield
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 12:44 PM
> To: mythtv-users at snowman.net
> Subject: [mythtv-users] WinTV PVR Cards
>
>
> Hi there.
>
> Finally got MythTv up and running.  Right now all I can do is view the
> Weather, but that is ok.  I still have to configure the rest and
> play round
> with the program has well.
>
> Anyway, I would like to purchase a video caputre card for this system
> because I think I am going to stick with MythTV.  Would I be
> better off with
> the WinTV PVR 250 or should I go with the PVR 350?  I know that
> the hardware
> decoder in the PVR 350 is not supported so would purchasing this one be a
> waste of money?  Will the decoder to be supported soon?


Well, IMHO, if your system is beefy enough to handle everything you want to
do without the hardware decoder, then I think the 350 is a waste of money
even if the decoder becomes supported.  The only way you'd really benefit
from future decoder support would be if you wanted to add more tuners to the
system and wanted to free up some CPU load currently used by the software
decoding process.  Also, a hardware decoder would only be useful in a
frontend machine.  The other use for a 350 decoder would be if you
eventually wanted a really small, lightweight, quiet frontend.  But there,
the EPIA boards already have an onboard decoder for which Linux (if not
Myth) support is forthcoming.

That's my $.02.  Of course, if I were in the position to spend a little
money, I'd be just as likely to say 'screw it!' and buy the 350 anyway, just
to have it, because 'you never know' when something like that might be
useful...

-JAC



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