[mythtv-users] Which tuner card? Can you make a recommendation?

Brad DerManouelian myth at dermanouelian.com
Sun Apr 2 00:20:21 UTC 2006


On Apr 1, 2006, at 7:04 PM, Douglas R. Spindler ((DNAI)) wrote:

> I'm new to MythTV and Linux and would like a recommendation for a  
> tuner
> card.  I've been using ReplayTV with the auto commercial advance,  
> and just
> saw a demo of MythTV.  Looks great!  Here's my question...  Which  
> tuner card
> should I use?  I've looked at the list, and seem Hauppauge is the  
> way to go.
> Only problem I can't easily tell what the difference is between the  
> models.
> Can you offer some assistance?
>
> I was thing of the PVR-550, but it doesn't come with a remote?   
> Don't you
> want a remote?  Looks like the PVR-350 has some audio issues and is  
> the only
> difference between the 150 and 250 an FM radio?

The PVR-500 is basically two PVR-150's stuck onto the same card. It's  
a great way to go if you want dual tuners. Takes up 1 PCI slot and  
you don't have to split your cable line (it does it itself) so your  
quality will be ok.

The PVR-350 is basically a 250 with the addition of an mpeg-2 decoder  
so you can use it instead of a video card for output to a television.  
I use it and the quality is top notch, but it's not without  
limitations (time stretch, closed captioning, other advanced  
functions). I haven't had any audio issues with mine, so I'm not sure  
what that is in reference to. The 350 does have an FM tuner, but I've  
never done anything with it. MythTV 0.19 does not support it  
natively. Gotta do some hacking and installation of 3rd party plugins  
to get it to work. Not even sure I've seen anyone getting it to work  
with 0.19 yet.

If you're looking for a single tuner, the PVR-150 is a popular/ 
relatively low cost solution.

And yes.. some come with a remote and some do not (they assume you're  
going to add it to a system that already has a remote). Make sure  
your first tuner comes with a remote and you'll be much happier.

> Can you offer a suggestion?  (Not looking of HD.)  I think an onboard
> encoder makes more sense on the tuner card makes sense, right?  Or  
> am I
> missing something?
>
> The box I want to use is a Dell OptiPlex GX110 P-3, 1.0gig with .5  
> gig of
> RAM and an integrated video card.  From what I have read, that  
> should work,
> right?

Sounds ok to me. I first started running with a PIII-733, 256MB RAM.  
Make sure you've got plenty of storage. I'm now seeing that my 250GB  
drive isn't enough to keep all the high quality video I want.

> I plan on using the easy build version of Myth.  From what I've  
> been told,
> it should build a system in about 30 minutes.  Sound about right?

Installation, yes. Config to get it to do everything you want will be  
longer and possibly on-going. If you're familiar with linux, it  
shouldn't be a problem. If not, try out KnoppMyth. It does most of  
the hard part for you.

>
> Would appreciate it If you could get me going,
> Thanks

-Brad



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