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

Jeff Simpson jeffsimpson at alum.wpi.edu
Mon Apr 17 03:43:48 UTC 2006


> When Nvidia's hardware is supported by free software, I'll buy this myself.

Nvidia IS supported by free software. There is an open-source driver that works.

HOWEVER nvidia ALSO releases their own binary driver, out of the
goodness of their hearts. And it works great and supports ALL the
features of the card.

I don't see Hauppauge jumping up to release ANY drivers for their
hardware. They are all about saying "Works in Linux / MythTV", but
they won't even release register maps for their hardware to
developers, we've had to reverse engineer. The ivtv driver was written
by somebody from what I assume was reverse engineering the windows
driver and reading the specs for the various chips on the card.

Remember that company that had open-source linux drivers, Matrox?
Neither do I. They just couldn't keep up with the competition.

> PVR-350 = free software drivers that will continue to work as long as anyone
> is willing to hack at it.

It's not a driver issue, the driver for the PVR-350 works. The
hardware itself is limited, it just doesn't do everything myth needs
it to anymore.

The nvidia card will also continue to work as long as people want to
hack it. Or more likely, no hacking is needed, since they can just use
the binary driver.

> PVR-150 + Nvidia card = if Nvidia ever decides to stop releasing their
> binary drivers for some business reason, you'll have a very nice doorstop on
> your hands.

Or you still have the driver that was already working? It's not going
to just STOP working when they flip the switch.

Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith with hardware.
Hardware has a life cycle, and sometimes it gets too old to support
any longer. If a company is no longer releasing binary drivers,
chances are the open-source developers would also no longer be
dedicating their time to the project. Try and find open-source support
for an old ATI Rage-based All-in-wonder card. It's just too old for
open-source developers to care about any longer.

 - Jeff


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