[mythtv-users] a better tuner for SD

[Brad DerManouelian]

On Oct 8, 2008, at 11:57 AM, Brett Kosinski wrote:

>> Unfortunately, I don't think you'll ever get as good going through a
>> capture card compared to straight to the TV. If you are resigned to
>> using coax, the PVR-250 is a nice tuner and probably your best  
>> choice.
>> It may look a little better than the PVR-500 because it's a single
>> tuner and doesn't split your signal. I don't recommend the PVR-150. I
>> took mine out of my system. It doesn't look nearly as good as the
>> PVR-350 I have (the 350 is basically the 250 with an mpg2 decoder on
>> it).
>
> Interesting, I hadn't heard about this.  I have a pair of PVR-150's
> and have been pretty happy with them, overall.  What differences have
> you observed between the 150 and 250?

I got some interference with my 150 and the audio seemed better on my  
350. Also, I often got the tinny audio problem on the 150 which never  
happened on the 350. There were also lots of reports of bad  
experiences with the 150 because they switched chipsets at some point.

That said, I know that the power supply can greatly affect the quality  
of the PVR-*50/500 (and probably many analog cards) as well as which  
PCI slot it is in. Maybe advice to the OP should be to swap out for a  
better power supply and see if that helps things.

-Brad