[mythtv-users] PCIe analog capture card recommendations

Larry Finger Larry.Finger at lwfinger.net
Wed Feb 11 17:32:07 UTC 2015


On 02/11/2015 12:35 AM, Karl Newman wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 11:00 AM, Karl Newman <siliconfiend at gmail.com
> <mailto:siliconfiend at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi all,
>
>     It appears that one of the tuners/encoders of my (9 year old!) PVR-500 has
>     given up the ghost (recordings are all 0 byte). I could replace it with an
>     eBay version, but given that those are going to be a similar vintage, and
>     the fact that I had to search around for a MB with PCI slots last time I
>     upgraded, I want to go to PCIe for better compatibility. I only need analog
>     SD capture. I can't use digital at all--cable has been encrypted for years
>     and I'd probably need about a 300 foot mast to pick up any ATSC broadcasts.
>     I don't need any IR support. I noticed the HVR-2250 was listed on the Wiki,
>     and it looks like this supports dual analog capture which appeals to me as a
>     complete replacement for my PVR-500 (who knows how much longer the other
>     tuner/encoder will last). So, anybody using this card for analog? Or any
>     other suggestions for cards (stability is the utmost concern). Ideally it
>     will support tuning RF NTSC that my DTA box is putting out, because I don't
>     know if that part is still working on the PVR-500 (the functional tuner is
>     using composite+stereo). I could use a single tuner card as long as I can
>     continue to use my PVR-500 as well (I know about stable device naming with
>     udev).
>
>     On a related note, I'll need to get a new case to accommodate this card. I'm
>     currently using a low profile Silverstone LC-11M with a PCI riser card that
>     turns the cards sideways. I no longer have the height constraints that I did
>     when I bought that case, so my options are a lot broader. Silverstone or
>     Antec or ??? Just looking for something black/dark that will blend in to the
>     living room. Doesn't necessarily need a LCD display--I hardly look at it
>     now--but it would be nice I guess. Needs to accommodate a microATX board, 3x
>     3.5 inch HDDs and a BluRay drive. My current case is relatively noisy with
>     fans but it doesn't really bother us much, however quieter is always better.
>
>     This failure is actually not all bad--it was overdue for a replacement, it's
>     still partly functional (I was surprised I didn't have more conflicts when I
>     removed the bad tuner) and this will get me on a path to my planned future
>     setup with a single analog card tied to the STB so we can record the premium
>     channels and eventually a CableCard Ethernet tuner (*still* waiting on the
>     transcoding model SiliconDust...)
>
>     Thanks,
>
>     Karl
>
>
> Ha! Well, it looks like my wallet will be staying closed for now. It appeared
> that my remaining single tuner recorded programs successfully today, but when we
> went to watch them it had recorded the wrong channel. A quick check of LiveTV
> showed my IR blaster was not firing. Further investigation showed a failure in
> my channel change script--running it on the command line revealed that suddenly
> .5 was not a valid real number for a delay and I had to change it to 0.5. I
> traced it back to a "routine" package upgrade Sunday evening that upgraded perl
> from 5.18 to 5.20 which was suddenly more picky about argument format. I use the
> same script (with different config files) for both inputs, but the reason it
> only caused one of them to fail is that one was calling the script directly,
> which returned the failure to mythbackend (No error mentioned in the log at all,
> by the way...) whereas the one that was still "working" had its error swallowed
> up by the wrapper script I use with it to work around an audio bug.
>
> Thanks to all for your input. Maybe if/when a reliable HVR 2255 driver comes out
> I might make the leap.
>
> Karl

Karl,

I have a functional PVR-500 that I am willing to give to you for the price of 
postage. That will keep your wallet nearly closed. I just got the inevitable 
letter from Time-Warner that they are shutting down analog TV in my neighborhood 
next month. That caused me to stop running a slave backend that contained the card.

If you are interested, send private E-mail to Larry.Finger at lwfinger.net.

Larry



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list