[mythtv-users] PVR 250 vs 350 vs no hardware encoding; Dolby audio

[Dan Christensen]

I'm about to order the components for a system that will run MythTV
(as well as do other things), and I have a few questions.

I'm trying to decide between the PVR-250 and the 350, or maybe even
something without hardware encoding.  I was thinking that I would
store video in a format that allows for higher compression,
e.g. MPEG-4.  So is there any point in using a card which does
encoding in hardware?  In fact, would using one of the Hauppauge cards
mean that video would need to be decoded and then re-encoded, and
would this cause a loss in quality?

For playback, I believe the 350 can only decode MPEG-2 in hardware.
Can it display video that is decoded in software?  Or would such video
need to be played through a separate video card?

I'm not very familiar with Dolby audio.  Is support for this something
that people find useful when using MythTV?

Thanks for any tips,

Dan

-- 
Dan Christensen
jdc at uwo.ca