[mythtv-users] PCI, S-Video, VDPAU, SDTV, interlaced CRT: what card?

[sdkovacs]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 1:08 AM,  <f-myth-users at media.mit.edu> wrote:
> I've got a 36" Sony CRT SDTV.  Interlaced.  Composite, S-Video,
> and component inputs -only-:  no VGA, no HDMI, no DVI, none o' that.
> Its S-Video is of the 4-pin style, not the 9-pin style.
>
> I've got a PVR-350 that obviously won't be supported for long.
> Especially since I'd like to transcode my SDTV to H.264 (to save 2-3x
> in space, I hope, in a very large corpus) and play it back using VDPAU
> instead.
>
> The frontend I'd like to put it in has PCI and AGP.  No PCI-X,
> PCIe/PCI Express, or any o' that, either.  (And get off my lawn!)
>
> Even though this is -already- an interlaced TV and the original
> (pre-H.264 content) is interlaced SDTV from PVR-250 capture, I have
> been given to understand that I -still- want to run a deinterlacer,
> so I don't have to worry about out-of-order fields.  I want the best
> interlacer possible---I'm very sensitive to video quality, which is
> one reason I am absolutely loathe to give up my PVR-350.  Especially
> to jerkiness, tearing, and all that.  So I presumably want Advanced 2x.
>
> I would prefer fanless if at all possible.  I assume I need at 512MB
> of memory at least (even for SD?).  If I -absolutely- can't find a
> card that fits these, maybe I can put a PCI Express card ([3], and see
> below) in a different machine, but that machine was slated to run my
> devo system, not the production system, making it much harder to do
> any development.
>
> What card can I get?  I know this has been discussed to death,
> but I'm having a really hard time satisfying these constraints.
> (There was a thread in October that -instantly- got sidetracked
> by the word "PCI" and never recovered, for instance.)
>
> Reviews like [1] (which claims "S-Video won't work with Linux")
> worry me.  (Apparently it's a 4 vs 9-pin issue and Sparkle claims
> no support for S-Video outside of Windows.)  But that's the -only-
> card (at least at NewEgg) which actually matches all my criteria.
> After that, I need to go to fans, I think, unless I've missed something.
> ([1] is the SFPC84GS512U2LP, which [2] claims works fine, but that
> user was using VGA, not S-Video.)

I don't know what that reviewer is talking about with regards to
svideo not working on Linux. That review is the first I've heard of
any problems on Linux and I'm running on CentOS 5.4. I have the
fanless Sparkle 8400GS PCI 512MB linked below. Running via *s-video*
(and using vdpau advanced 2x) to a 27" Sony CRT.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187042