[mythtv-users] WinFast TV2000 XP Expert with MythTV

[Phill Wiggin]

Brian Wood wrote:

>>
>>
>>I used one of these for 6-8 months as a primary, and afterwards a
>>backup, tuner in my standalone BE.  I had no problems running it  
>>with a
>>2500+ w/ 512M of RAM.  But, the video you end up with is, MPEG4, IIRC.
>>It didn't make for putting shows on DVD, and I was annoyed by the
>>compression artifacts.  I bought a PVR-250 and relegated the WinFast
>>TV2k to second-tuner duty and it worked out well, but the 250 had  
>>better
>>recorded quality (albeit larger file-size).  Then, I replaced it  
>>with a
>>second PVR-250 and ended up (permanently) loaning it to a friend so he
>>could get a mythbox started for 'free'.
>>
>>In short, if you only need a backup tuner, and aren't worried about
>>archiving the shows it records, it's a fine free method.  But, if you
>>want to archive and/or have good quality, go with a hardware  
>>encoder card.
>>    
>>
>
>With a frame-grabber card you can get MPEG-4 or RTJPEG compression,  
>and you can adjust the parameters of the compression to get the best  
>combination of CPU usage and quality for your particular machine.
>
>If you want to make a DVD you can transcode the result to MPEG-2, but  
>the result might not be as good as if you had compressed to MPEG-2 in  
>the first place.
>
>  
>
Agreed. In my particular case, this was a while ago and the tools 
weren't nearly as friendly as they are now.  But, IIRC, I never got as 
good of a picture with the software encoder card as the hardware encoder 
regardless of settings.  But, I could have had a bad cable, connection, 
or any number of other problems at that time. 

But, you're absolutely correct, it can be done, but I'd personally 
recommend a hardware card for any long-life system (or one where you'd 
like to archive to DVD). =)

--Phill W.