[mythtv-users] OT: Buying pvr-350 in SF bay area

[Dewey Smolka]

On 3/16/06, Nick Bartos <spam1001 at 2thebatcave.com> wrote:
> I am getting annoyed at some issues I cannot seem to get rid of due to
> playback and have decided that I want to try one of these pvr-350's.
> However being as impatient as I am, I would really like to buy one locally
> as apposed to off the net.

What are the issues, and what are you currently using for playback? For capture?

The output quality on the 350 is very good for SDTV, but beware: With
the 350 it will be difficult or impossible to get BIOS/bootup messages
and to play back any video not captured by the 350 (or in standard SD
MPEG-2).

This means no HD, no Divx, no Xvid, no MPEG-4 of any kind, etc.

If you're only planning on playing back SDTV that you capture, the 350
will do nicely. If you care about transcoding, DVD archiving, etc, the
350 will probably disappoint you.

Most likely you'd be better off going out through an nvidia card (gf4
/ fx). You should be able to get one for $50-$60 that has a heatsink
(rather than a fan) and outputs through DVI and S-video as well as
VGA.