[mythtv-users] TV out for unlisted card?

[Angus]

Rod Smith wrote:
> On Sunday 01 April 2007 21:45, Angus wrote:
>   
>> Before I go for a card, I need to be certain it will work. This is
>> the sort of thing I want to get right the first time, unlike the capture
>> card I bought which I thought was also TV out.
>>     
>
> You're unlikely to find a 100% guarantee that ANYTHING will work -- even if a 
> card works fine on System X, it may not work at all on System Y because of 
> idiosyncratic incompatibilities with other hardware or with specific software 
> configurations (kernel versions, 32- vs. 64-bit, etc.).
>   

    Well, when I first said that last week, I was expecting a flood of 
endorsements for one card or another. 'Doesn't look like it's gonna be 
that simple.

> That said, I can say with certainty that I've used two cards based on nVidia 
> MX4000 chipsets in a MythTV box. Both worked fine for SD, although one 
>   
    Chipsets?? There's more than one MX4000 chipset?

> produced blue screens when playing back HD content at SD resolutions. Whether 
>   

    Blue screens? Isn't that an MS-Windows thing?

> they'd be fast enough on your 800MHz system, though, I cannot say, as my 
> system has a 3.06GHz Celeron-D CPU.
>   

    Well, they seem more reasonably priced for what I want to do. If you 
think they'll do the trick, then I'll try for one of those instead of an 
FX 5200.

> XvMC is the name of the software library for Linux that uses certain 
> hardware
> acceleration features when playing back MPEG-2 video. Here's the MythTV wiki 
> entry on it:
>
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC
>   

    Ok, so it's a software thing, that requires some h/w support, so I 
just gotta hope that what I get can support it. Check

> Your card is clearly listed there as a software encoder card. It'll consume 
> most of your available 800MHz CPU to encode video. In fact, an 800MHz CPU may 
> be inadequate for some resolutions, quality settings, etc.
>   
    Well, fortunately I didn't get into this racket for the capturing 
anyway, just the playback. Unfortunately, this means I wasted money on a 
card that didn't even have TV out. But since I haven't even got the 
playback part off the ground, I think I'll just concentrate on that for now.