[mythtv-users] Secondary capture card

[Nick]

On 05/10/06, David Fishburn <fishburn at ianywhere.com> wrote:
>
> I am just putting together a system and plan on purchasing a Hauppauge
> PVR-350.
>
> What do people recommend for a secondary capture card?
> I will only need it for those occasions when two shows are on at the same
> time.

Consider getting a PVR-500 card instead, which has 2 hardware MPEG2
encoders and tuners. It doesn't have a hardware MPEG2 decoder like the
-350, but support for the -350 is waning as many messages on this list
will attest. Many former PVR-350 output users are now using their
video card for output, as it gives much more flexibility with other
media and the new OpenGL-based menus, which the PVR-350 output does
not support.

> Well at least that is the only reason I think I would need one, are there
> others?

Not really. Recording 2 shows at once, or recording one show and
watching LiveTV on the other card are to key reasons.

> The Hauppauges are nice since they have the full hardware encoding, but I
> doubt I really need that for the second show.  So you can purchase some
> cheaper ones, but I don't know which ones will work with MythTV and Linux.

The PVR cards give very good quality output with very little CPU
usage. Using a cheaper framegrabber card can prove to be a false
economy, plus if you use a PVR-500 you only use a single PCI slot. If
I wanted to record 2 shows at once, I'd want them to be in the same
quality also, and you \may\ not get this with capture cards of a
different type.

Nick

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