[mythtv-users] TV Out Question (PVR-350 vs Nvidia TV Out)

kevin r. marshall kevin at pipeline.com
Fri Sep 26 22:01:02 UTC 2008


Hello all, i'm new to the list, but have been using Myth for about a year now.

I have a question regarding TV Out options.  Last year i built a Mythbox using the Abit AN-M2HD (GeForce 7 series 7050PV)  mobo witch has HDMI out.  This worked fine with my flat screen.  The problem arose when i had to move to Japan earlier this year and am not on a budget.  Our TV in Japan (a TV that my brother-in-law was not using) is a wide screen SD CRT with only composite and SVHS inputs.  I can't afford a flat screen in Japan at this time and doubt that that situation will change any time soon.  Therefore i am looking for a way to get video out to the CRT TV.

The way i look at it, i only have two choices (please correct me if i am wrong).  One of those choices being a PVR-350 and using it's SVHS TV out.  The second option would be buying an Nvidia card with TV out capabilities and going that route.

I use MythVideo about 85% if the time (watching English language stuff i've downloaded) and i've heard that the PVR-350 sometimes has issues outputting stuff other than MPEG2 (most of my downloads are mp4/xVid).  My CPU doesn't really need any hardware assistance playing the files without hardware acceleration, but i'm a bit confused about the PVR-350 TV out.  

My question is: i understand that the 350 will not hardware accelerate anything other than MPEG2, but will it actually hinder the output from CPU based MythVideo or will it just pass it along to the TV as normal?

Second question being, if anyone has any recommendations for me (buy a PVR-350, buy a Nvidia card with TV Out or any other method) i'm all ears.

Many Thanks,
Kevin R. Marshall


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