[mythtv-users] PVR250 or HD3000?

[Preston Crow]

On Mon, 2004-12-20 at 15:24, Michael J. Lynch wrote:
> Preston Crow wrote:
> >On Mon, 2004-12-20 at 14:56, Michael J. Lynch wrote:
> >>Other than cost, is there any reason to choose a PVR250 over a pchdtv
> >>hd3000 since the latter can MPEG2 encode both NTSC and ATSC?
> >> 
> >You need to go back and do some more research, as the HD-3000 doesn't
> >MPEG encode anything.  (ATSC is broadcast as MPEG, so no encoding is
> >required by the recipient.)  Most HD-3000 users also use a PVR-250 card
> >for NTSC.
> >
> That's not what the pcHDTV website says.  It specifically states that 
> the card
> MPEG2 encoding.  See the second line of paragraph 2 of the following link:
> 
> HD-3000 at pcHDTV <http://www.pchdtv.com/hd_3000.html>
> 
> The line I'm referencing is:
> 
> "The card receives NTSC and ATSC Signals and converts them to
> digital streams which are transported across the PCI bus."
> 
> I know that ATSC is already MPEG2, does this possibly mean that
> NTSC is converted to some digital format that is something other
> than MPEG2?
> 
> Further reading on the page suggests NTSC is, in fact, MPEG2 encoded.

Nope.  It does digitize NTSC, but that doesn't mean it compresses it. 
It gives you raw frames that would have to be compressed in software.

And besides that, the truth is that the pchdtv.com drivers just plain
suck.  People are lucky to get ATSC working.  Few have even tried to get
NTSC working, and most of those have reported failures.  Because the
ATSC and NTSC parts of the card use a different video device, Myth
doesn't understand that only one can be used at a time and doesn't
schedule accordingly.  Hence, Myth doesn't support using the card for
both.

--PC