[mythtv-users] Current wisdom on PVR-150/250/350/500

Scott Karlin scott at CS.Princeton.EDU
Sat Apr 15 19:30:45 UTC 2006


I've been scouring the mailing lists and web for sage advice
on which Hauppauge video capture device to get.

The issue is that the web documentation basically lists what
"works" (with no statements about relative quality) and the
mailing lists basically contain postings of people having
difficulty (and skewing the distribution of happy vs. unhappy
users).

I've decided to (somewhat arbitrarily) restrict my choices to
Hauppauge as they explicitly mention MythTV on their comparison
chart: <http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/compare_pvr.html>
The chart lists the following:
   WinTV-PVR-150
   WinTV-PVR-150 MCE
   WinTV-PVR-150 MCE Kit
   WinTV-PVR-150 MCE low-profile
   WinTV-PVR-250
   WinTV-PVR-250 MCE
   WinTV-PVR-350
   WinTV-PVR-500 MCE (dual tuners)
   WinTV-PVR-USB2
   WinTV-PVR-USB2 MCE Kit
There's no indication that the video capture/encoding quality
specifications of these units are any different.
Does anyone know if the specs are indeed different?
I'm interested in getting the best quality picture.

Visiting <http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Supported_hardware>
suggests that I want to avoid the USB versions as well as the
WinTV-PVR-250 MCE for MythTV.

In this post: <http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2006-April/132083.html>
Jeff Simpson states "Don't buy a PVR-350 for any purpose."
Jeff, if you are reading this, can you elaborate?

Assuming the PVR-150 devices produce the same quality, I'll
eliminate the WinTV-PVR-150 and the low-profile units as I'd
prefer RCA audio connections over a jack.

This leaves:
   WinTV-PVR-150 MCE
   WinTV-PVR-150 MCE Kit
   WinTV-PVR-250
   WinTV-PVR-500 MCE

The WinTV-PVR-250 also has the small jacks and assuming that
its quality is the same, I can eliminate it, too.

Now, there's been a lot of chatter on the list about trouble
with the WinTV-PVR-500 MCE regarding audio levels and other
interference and that the working theory is that the FM-tuner
may be the cause of the trouble.
Anyone know if this is widespread?  Or, are there thousands of
happy users and the few unlucky ones are posting to the list.

Since the FM tuner is not a requirement and may, in fact, be
a problem, that leaves:
   WinTV-PVR-150 MCE Kit

Anyone have an alternate analysis or comments?

Thanks,
Scott


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