[mythtv] Hardware encoders

[Bruce Markey]

Tom Lichti wrote:
> Bruce Markey wrote:
>> Hardware encoders suck!
> 
> snip...
> 
>> <!rant>
> 
> Thanks for that discourse Bruce, it was very enlightening. Would you say 
> that this applies to most bttv based cards? Any to avoid, or 
> alternatively, that you prefer? I am going to be making some big changes 
> to my myth setup, and this could help me in some ways.

An underlying premise is that a bt8x8 is a bt8x8 and they
are all capable of outputting the same raw frame given the
same register settings. The questions are which features are
turned on or off and how are those frames post processed.

AFAIK all of the module parameters for bttv apply to any
bt8x8 chip on cards supported by bttv. However, you need to
be aware of audio differences. If you use s-video of composite,
you can plug into the line-in stereo mini jack and the stereo
channels will pass through on any card. If you use the coax tuner
input, only cards that specify "Stereo TV" or "DBX" can decode
stereo from this input. WinTV "GO" is the low end model and does
not decoded stereo from cable but a higher end card like WinTV
model 401 does. Same for AverTV. Budget models don't do stereo.

Another difference that has drawn too much attention over the
years is "btaudio". Some card (very few) have a DSP on board
and audio can be recorded from this device with the btaudio
kernel module but this has limitations. If I had a card that
worked with btaudio and an open line-in on a sound card, I'd
still plug into the sound card to use it's DSP to digitize the
audio.

I'd say before "making some big changes", get one card and
experiment with it. See what does and doesn't work well for you.

--  bjm