[mythtv-users] Capture Card Advice

Tony Mahar amahar at snet.net
Thu Jul 24 15:53:22 EDT 2003


Thanks Jeff,

I guess my question comes down to is this: obviously, a software encoder can
potentially produce a better image given enough computing power, with little
to no artifact, smearing, or ghosting problems on the encode side, and good
de-interlacing of the source image.  Since the hardware encoders are fixed
silicon (unless there's a pga in there), are they at a fixed compression
mode or do they allow different compression levels of the mpeg encoding.

Thanks,
Tony
 -----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces at snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at snowman.net] On Behalf Of Jeff Williams
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:18 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] Capture Card Advice

Hardware-based encoders probably won't give you a noticeable difference in
quality (though they might) but they will allow you to get away with a much
slower CPU.  TiVo, ReplayTV and other pre-built DVR's use hardware encoders
along with ridiculously slow CPU's that do nothing but basically power the
menu interface and process remote control inputs.

It's just a tradeoff.  With a hardware encoder you put the processing power
on the card vs. on your CPU.  Without a hardware encoder, you need a very
fast CPU to capture at the highest resolutions with de-interlacing on, while
also watching a previously recorded show at the same time.  Software
encoders just capture the raw signal and pass it on to the CPU for encoding.

I don't know that one is really better than the other; I think it depends on
the rest of the PC you either already have or are planning to build.  If
you've got a 3mhz CPU already, you may as well not waste the money on a
hardware encoder card, as that's plenty of power for doing pretty much
anything you'd want with Myth, even with more than one tuner.  But if you're
building from scratch, you may be able to save some money overall and still
get excellent quality by going with something like the PVR-250.


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Mahar [mailto:amahar at snet.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:01 AM
To: mythtv-users at snowman.net
Subject: [mythtv-users] Capture Card Advice


Hello all,

I am new to PVR on PC, but am very excited.  I am switching from my
satellite TV based PVR (dish 501 pvr) to regular analog cable.

What setup provides the best capture quality at 29.7x fps NTSC? 

Would it be boards like Hauppauge PVR 350 with mpeg encoders?  Or are the
encoders on the hardware chips poor, and then would a software encoder with
a fast machine be capable of cleaner encoding?

Thanks,
Tony


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