Codec discussion-Idea [mythtv-users] Leadtek WinFast TV 2000 Expert

[robert atkinson]

I thought, that since I did a little digging on my own, I would share a 
link.

http://www.conexant.com/servlets/DownloadServlet/100532b.pdf?FileId=324

The Fusion 878A is in fact a Conexant chipset, but one that is 100% 
compatible with
the BT878 by design.

I did NOT however, compare specs to the BT878.
I could swear that the BT878 didn't have svideo in, but I could be wrong.
It's either on an addition to the board or in the chip, but the 878A 
touts that
it supports the bt848a 'including' the integration of several features.
This may be a fancy way of saying yet again it's a clone in some way.

Kicking the wheels on many decoder boards, decode not being any video 
codec on our end
(divx, mpeg2), the BT878 comes up very often a lot of generic brands.
The general consent on the mailing list seems to be that BT878 works 
fine for just about
darn near everyone.

However, the one area I continue to wonder about is a simple one:
What does the quality look like?

So far, I have seen wonderful pictures of actual systems that were 
built, but one thing
is always lacking: actual video clip samples from various boards. I 
won't take
for granted that some have over the air antenna. Depending on where you 
live, there
could be analog cable-tv in use, or digital cable. There is also the 
same number of connection
types per each input and we all know that for the most part, 
Coax-SVIDEO-Composite are
all different in quality.

Would we all find it useful to have somewhere to stuff some clips of our 
work?
This is fair use of course, if you keep the clip to 10 seconds max, 
there isn't a problem,
especially since it's for testing or comparing products, what else is 
there to provide
a sample of?

The mythtv project is pretty solid on what codecs we use, so even if 
'end-result'
compression into a cross platfrom codec is performed, then even those
that only do win32 up to this point can see. If not even for the 
tech-heads, at least
for them :)

If I can get a decent quality picture from an s-video input, i'd much 
rather make
up the difference with cpu power than spreading out my chips. I compare 
this to
FC disk arrays, and the whole notion of having a disk storage. You could
have 20 hard drives one in each server, but 20 in one big box is easier 
to keep up.

But all this talk about m179 being good, pvr250, kworld, leadtek words 
can never
express what it all looks like.

So in closing, I don't mind donating space on my personal web box for 
clips of this sort.
I wouldn't even mind creating the application that would accept the 
submissions for
display and catagories assigned. If at least 5 people say they would 
submit a clip
and hardware specs with inputs, then it is worth it for us all.

Some people can live with a kworld, others want a pvr250, it's just not 
good shopping
to not have actual samples.

Thanks for your time,
P

> Linux support is not complete for this card yet, it does not use the 
> bt878 chipset, so the
> driver is still being developed.
>
> I use the TV 2000 delux and that works fine.
>
> Bernie
>
> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:21:32 -0700, Michael A. Howell 
> <michael.howell at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> I was going to use a PVR 350, however I need to find a low profile 
>> card to use instead.  Does anyone have experience with this card in a 
>> MythTV box?
>
>
>
>
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