[mythtv-users] Choosing tuner cards, please advice

[Rickard Borgmäster]

Hello,

I am about to buy one or more tuner cards and I need a little bit of
advice.

Current setup is:
P3 Coppermine 800Mhz
Soyo 7VCA Motherboard (Chipset VIA Apollo Pro133A (VT82C694X+VT82C686A))
128Mb PC133 RAM
ATI 3D Rage Pro 2X AGP (About change this aswell)
Pinnacle/Miro DC30 Plus MJPEG Board
On motherboard AC97 Sound

I am thinking about these options:

1) Installing a Hauppauge Nexus-CA (eq=Technotrend C2300 DVB-C)

2)  Installing a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 MCE(*)
    Plus installing an TerraTec Cinergy 1200 DVB-C

Costs are about equal.

(*) I suppose the MCE edition is supported just as the regular PVR150?
    Does anyone know if the FM radio tuner on this card is supported?

What I am thinking here is that option 2 gives me two tuners, one with
analogue and one with digital. Beeing able to receive analogue channels
aswell is not a bad thing. Beeing able to record on one card and watch on
the other isn't bad that either.

But what about tradeoffs? The Terratec Cinergy card lacks hardware MPEG2.
Since I am novice to this, I have no clue if it matters. Can the capture
driver utilise the MPEG2 processor on PVR150 while actually capturing from
the Cinergy DVB card? Or maybe a driver could use the MJPEG hardware board
I have, while actully capturing on a tuner card?

The reason this is important to me is of course the narrow supply of DVB-C
cards with MPEG2 hardware, and my CPU is only 800Mhz. I want to be able to
capture with good quality. As good as it could possibly be without buying
a new Motherboard/CPU.

Any ideas or comments welcome.


Links:
Terratec Cinergy 1200 DVB-C
http://productsen.terratec.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=218
Hauppauge Nexus CA DVB-S (Similar but satellite)
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/products/data_nexus.html
Hauppauge WinTV PVR150MCE
http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr150mce.html
Hauppauge WinTV PVR150
http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr150.html
-- 

Rickard

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