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On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 13:41 -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Michael Bochynski wrote:</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> My setup is as follows - cable box, LeadTek WinFast TV Deluxe as tuner </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> and ATI Radeon 8500 as TV-Out.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">></FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> However, My mythtv TV_OUT is significantly worse in terms of picture </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> quality than a direct cable out to TV. My question is whether it is </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> due to ATI card, not fully supported under Linux, or TV tuner, which </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> does software encoding?</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Probably configuration. Could be anything from encoder settings to X </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">settings to ATI settings to Myth settings to ... It's also likely that </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">even switching to another output device will not fix the problems.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> I want to replace one of those components, by my question is whether </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> it makes more sense to get PVR-350 (I don't need dual tuners of 500, </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> since I use cable box) or nice NVIDIA graphics card for better </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">> support for linux?</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">IMHO, the PVR-350 is a waste of money (and I wasted money on one) in </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">today's world. It made sense when 720x480 MPEG-2 decoding strained </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">general-purpose CPU's, but any processor that's worth using in a Myth </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">box (1GHz or better) will barely notice the effort. I'm using an NVIDIA </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">card (and not using the TV out on my PVR-350) because it has so many </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">advantages:</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"> - OpenGL support</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"> - Choice of resolution, overscan, etc. (allows you to choose the </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">best combination of scaling, size, position, etc. for your needs)</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"> - Choice of outputs (i.e. built-in TV out, using VGA to a VGA to </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">NTSC/PAL converter, using VGA/DVI to a monitor/digital TV, etc.)</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"> - If you get a 5200 or better, ability to support HDTV when you </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">decide to switch</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"> - Is not a single-purpose device, so it continues to be useful even </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">if you stop using Myth. (OK, I don't think it's possible for someone to </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">stop using Myth once they've started, but it's the principal of the matter.)</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">And only one disadvantage:</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"> - Does not provide the placebo effect for users, so video quality is </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">significantly worse. ;) (Which actually means you must learn how to </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">configure it for good video quality. With a PVR-350, you just need to </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">learn how to configure it and you get good quality--the PVR-350 is an </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">all or nothing configuration because it doesn't give you the options </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">that I mentioned as a benefit above, so you can't configure it for </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">poor-quality output.)</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">OK, so the NVIDIA proprietary drivers are the real disadvantage, but </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">they're much better than the ATI drivers, so if you've got to pick one, </FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">NVIDIA's the way to go.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Mike</FONT>
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<BR>
Mike, <BR>
<BR>
Thanks for suggestions. before spending any money I will play around with settings. <BR>
<BR>
However, honestly, the advantages of NVIDIA card you presented are not overwhelming. The MythTV box will be used for MythTV only, nothing else, hence OpenGL does not matter, am I right? I don't even have, and don't plan to have, a regular monitor/LCD at home which I could use :) Signal (MythTV) goes to TV out only. <BR>
<BR>
Right now I output TV to my receiver and then to TV. While HDTV is a nice-to-have, i do not expect to have it in the next 6 - 12 month, while I will watch TV in the next 6 - 12 months :) Hence having DVI, HDTV and so on is not the highest priority. I will probably want to add it, <BR>
<BR>
I am going solely after the picture (TV) quality. I do not mind proprietary drivers, since I hope I have my compile-from-source times behind me, starting with the (very) early Linux times. I know, however, that ATI (proprietary) drivers are worse than NVIDIA ones. BTW, which NVIIDA card is worth looking at? I don't want to end up with card which is not supported under Linux at all.<BR>
<BR>
Michael<BR>
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