[mythtv-users] PVR 350 vs PVR 250?

[Niklas Brunlid]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:26:32 -0400, Michael T. Dean  
<mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:

> On 08/30/2004 05:10 PM, Dave Bush wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:24:00 -0400, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 30, 2004 at 01:01:45PM -0500, Michael J. Lynch wrote:
>>>
>>>> The main differences are (as far as I know):
>>>>
>>>>    250:  Hardware based encoder only (No hardware based decoder).
>>>>    350:  Hardware based encoder AND hardware based decoder.  TV out.
>>>>
>>> Note that the 250MCE *has* the decoder, but since there's no TV-out
>>> hardware, no one's figured out whether it can be used as a standalone
>>> hardware decode-codec yet.
>>>
>> FWIW - I've had my PVR-350 for a few weeks now, and from what I can
>> tell so far I wish I'd saved a few bucks and went with the PVR-250.
>>
>> I'm using the TV out on my Shuttle XPC SS40G, and it works like a
>> charm. From reading this list for a while it also seems like it should
>> be less problematic than trying to force the TV-Out on the PVR-350 to
>> work.
>>
> Yes.  The most important point about the PVR-350's decoder is that it  
> can *only* be used with the PVR-350's TV out.  Since the PVR-350 isn't a  
> true video card (it just has a framebuffer), there is no OpenGL or even  
> X Video acceleration.  Therefore, if you try to play anything other than  
> PVR-x50 recordings on the PVR-350's TV out (i.e. MOV, AVI, DivX, XviD,  
> DVD's, etc.), you'll incur a *huge* performance penalty.  On my Athlon  
> XP 2000+, I wasn't satisfied with the TV out on the PVR-350--except for  
> PVR-350 recordings--so I'm using my 350 as a 250:  I don't even load the  
> framebuffer module, and I'm using a GF4MX440 for TV out.

I keep hearing this but I'm just not seeing it - I've been running the  
0.1.9a ivtv modules and X driver (from http://membres.lycos.fr/badzzzz/)  
for 6+ months and my 350 plays back files and DVDs just fine. With "fine"  
I mean that they play back at the correct speed, although there is visible  
tearing (since the output isn't synced with the TV:s refresh). And even  
that depends on when you started the playback, so if you managed to start  
it at the exact time that the TV started refreshing a frame you get no  
tearing at all (hard to explain).

Playing DVDs take 15-20% of my P4 2.4GHz using Xine, btw. AVI:s etc. take  
less using mplayer.

/ Niklas