[mythtv-users] Taking the plunge - General questions about setup and PVR250

Joseph A. Caputo jcaputo1 at comcast.net
Tue May 27 13:10:09 EDT 2003


>
> 1. On the PVR250, does the tv out work?  I would imagine that the mythtv
> overlays and stuff do NOT output via that connection and that is cool
> because I'd like to use that for VCR recording/archiving.
>

The PVR-250 does not have a TV-out; only the PVR-350 does, AFAIK.  The 350
has an onboard MPEG decoder, which means that the TV-out will only accept
MPEG data.  The MythTV menus & other screens are not in MPEG format, thus
cannot (currently) be output to a PVR-350.  Plus, I don't know if the ivtv
driver supports the MPEG decoder on the 350 yet.

Speculation on my part:

My guess it that the card itself outputs the decoded MPEG stream via an
internal loopback from the encoded input; the (Windows) driver probably
enables this to be switched on/off or select loopback vs. MPEG file from
disk.

It would be cool if Myth supported MPEG-format output for menu screens and
such, as this would enable a really lightweight frontend (using one of the
VIA EPIA boards) or a lightweight frontend/backend combo using any small/low
power PC with a PVR-350.  However, my (limited) understanding of the issues
involved tell me that this is not likely to happen soon, if ever.

-JAC



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