[mythtv-users] Over mythTV stability/success

[Andrew Dodd]

Quoting Matt Michie <mmichie at cs.nmsu.edu>:

> On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Andrew Dodd wrote:
> 
> > PVR-350 TV-out - don't use it
> 
> Could you explain why you feel this way?  I just was about to purchase a
> PVR-350 and then noticed that you can not use MythGames with this card,
> that in fact you'd have to use a GeForce card or similar.
> 
> Keeping in mind I'd like to be able to use MythGames and you say not to
> use the 350 TV-out anyway, is the 350 worth it at all?  Is it just better
> to go with a 250 + a GeForce4MX with tvout?

There are two main issues with the PVR-350 TV out:

a)  Right now there are some driver issues.  Specifically, crashes when you
bring up the EPG during playback, and other overlay-related crashes.

b)  The card does not support Xvideo functionality.  (Hardware scaling, etc.) 
Thus using it for games will be impractical, unless the game/emulator has some
sort of fallback for when Xv overlay support is nonexistent.  Except for
playback of MPEG2 video, the PVR-350's TV out is just a dumb raw framebuffer.

Now, reasons to get a PVR-350:
a)  "just in case" - you might transfer it to a frontend that won't be running
mythgame, and the current ivtv stability problems with TV-out will eventually be
resolved.

b)  PVR-250 doesn't have FM capability.  Was worth the extra $30 for FM support
alone, at least for me.