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

Kichigai Mentat kichigai at comcast.net
Sun Apr 2 03:15:10 UTC 2006


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Apr 1, 2006, at 18.04, 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.

Yeah, the Hauppauge pages aren't all that helpful, and the Wiki still  
needs some work.

> 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?

You mean the PVR-500. The 550 doesn't exist. The PVR-500 is a dual- 
tuner card. But that doesn't mean you can't use another Remote  
receiver, over a Serial or USB line.

>   Looks like the PVR-350 has some audio issues

Actually, I haven't really noticed any big complaints about audio  
problems with the PVR-350. It's quite well regarded from what I've  
heard. However, built-in support for the PVR-350's on-board MPEG-2  
decoder is being dropped, so you might want to watch out. However,  
the TV-Out support is loved by many, and you can always use the  
XVideo output, which allows for features like Time-Stretch (Play  
videos back at 0.9x through 1.5x, without audio distortion) and non- 
MPEG-2 playback. The catch is that your CPU will have to do the  
decoding (not like MPEG-2 decoding is that hard, though)

> and is the only
> difference between the 150 and 250 an FM radio?

I don't even think that's the difference. In all honesty, I have no  
clue what the difference is, and if there is an FM tuner, I don't  
even know if it works in Myth. I have a PVR-150 and I'm very happy  
with it. I consider it one of the best purchases I've made. I don't  
use the IR blaster/receiver (My front-end is an XBox, and the PVR-150  
is in a dedicated back-end) so I can't speak about that.

>
> 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?

Nope, you've got that nailed.

>
> 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?

I'm assuming "1.0gig" means 1 GHz, and you have 512 MB of RAM. That  
should be plenty. With a hardware encoder, the only CPU strain should  
be the front-end and database work, in addition to MPEG-2 decoding.  
My back-end is a Pentium Celeron 600 MHz with 256 MB of RAM. Except  
for occasionally running out of hard disk space (I need to expand  
that), I've had no problems with it. My front-end is an XBox (Pentium  
Celeron-like CPU, 733 MHz, 64 MB of RAM) and it handles most of the  
Myth features with no problem (I haven't tested them all. I have no  
use for MythMusic, MythGame, MythBrowser, etc.).

The only thing I'd wonder about is that video output. Unless the on- 
board video chip features TV-Out, you might want to consider using a  
different video card. And depending on the video card you have, you  
might actually be able to get away with hardware MPEG-2 decoding too!  
Anyway, that box should be plenty good.

>
> 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?

Depends on what you're using. I'm using KnoppMyth R5A2, and I had the  
system running in about... 45 minutes. Of course, that's including  
configuring the back-end after installing everything, and also  
including the amount of time it took to download the listings.

I've also heard good things about MythDora, but I've never used it.  
It all depends on which you like better: Knoppix-style (Debian based)  
Linux, or Fedora based Linux.

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

Always glad to help someone out.

> Thanks

To help things along, try checking out the MythTV Wiki at http:// 
www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I also found this video useful (if you go the KnoppMyth route):
http://revision3.com/systm/mythtv/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (Darwin)

iD8DBQFEL0HBwAwn3hu8KxcRAqhvAJ9wJV6oFvK9265hBoDtf0MjSl3IkQCdG+AF
xEuCA2/4BqvN8w6w4IK5WP0=
=THXX
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list