[mythtv-users] PVR-350 - PAL-I Variant, for use in Ireland?

[Jon Waite]

> Can you (or anyone else) clear something up for me?  What 
> exactly is the most commonly-used broadcast standard in the 
> UK?  If I'm in England, picking up BBC1 with a rooftop 
> antenna, is that going to be a PAL-I, PAL-G or PAL-B signal - 
> and will it be on the VHF or UHF bands?  I'm assuming that 
> 350's sold in the UK will be able to receive that signal, 
> whatever it is...

The 'rooftop antenna' signal in the UK is UHF *only*, most TV's sold in the
UK don't have the ability to tune to VHF signals at all. (As we found out
when we moved to New Zealand which uses mainly VHF for broadcast TV).

As far as I know, all UK broadcast TV is PAL-I format on UHF.

So (as far as I understand it), you've got a board which will do PAL-G UHF
and PAL-B VHF tuning. (ie, exactly what I needed/bought to be able to
receive broadcast TV in New Zealand!).

Now... If you're NTL cable signal is broadcast in PAL-B over VHF (which
sounds plausible given your earlier explanations), then you should be able
to tune to these VHF signals with no problems at all with your current card.
You will also (probably!) be able to tune to *either* the picture or the
audio of the UHF channels - ptune-ui.pl is your friend, (but not audio and
video at the same time) - this is certainly our experience of attempting to
use PAL-I tuners (TV, kid's TV's, VCR's etc) to receive a PAL-G signal (New
Zealand broadcast UHF), so I'd imagine the frequency separation between
audio and video is different between PAL-I and PAL-G and the same would
apply in reverse (receiving PAL-I with a PAL-G tuner).

Now, if you got a 'PAL-I' board suitable for reception of UK broadcast TV
(on UHF only) I've no idea if that also includes a PAL-B VHF tuner - no-one
in the mainland UK would be able to use it (VHF) for anything so I kinda
doubt it - which would make it useless to receive your VHF NTL signal.

So In summary :-

What you really need is a card with a PAL-B VHF tuner (for your cable
signal) and PAL-I UHF tuner (for broadcast). If the UK model PVRx50 cards
include VHF tuners then that's your best bet. If they don't, the only other
country I can see that uses that combination is Nigeria, wonder if Hauppauge
make a model for that market ?

What you've got is a PAL-B VHF tuner (should be fine for your cable) and a
PAL-G UHF tuner (no use to you at all if you want to receive both video and
audio for a broadcast channel).

I've no idea if it's possible to 'tweak' or replace the tuner on the PVRx50
cards with another one, from what I can see the tuner unit is fairly
self-contained and would be easy to desolder/resolder, but this is just
speculation.