[mythtv-users] Newbie needs help choosing hardware for use in the UK

[Neil Milne]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:45:26 -0000, Alexander Fisher
<mythtv at alexfisher.me.uk> wrote:
> 
> Living in the UK, 2 DVB cards seem to be the way forward.  Am I right in
> thinking that they all produce MPEG2 streams so no encoding has to be done
> in software? 

Yes. All the TV recordings are streamed directly to the HD. Big files though :-)

> I've come up with a 3 card shortlist all available from
> www.scan.co.uk (where I'll be placing an order for some unrelated stuff
> later this week.) They are ...
> 
> Avermedia DVB-T PCI Card £64.44
> Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-T Freeview receiver PCI (909) £62.06 Vision + PCI TV
> Tuner - HDTV Compatible + Remote £46.06
> 

Scan used to do a cut down OEM version of the Nova-T without a remote
which was a good bit cheaper but it appears to be gone now. I would
definitely go Hauppauge Nova-T though - my two cards are excellent and
have good linux drivers.


> Or should I just go for the cheapest?  Shouldn't the outputted MPEG2 stream
> be identical for each card?

In theory, but I've read that the Hauppauge cards are much better at
holding a weak signal which was important for me as I'm pretty far
from the transmitter...

> The option to receive some of the top-up-tv
> channels might be good too.  Has anybody got this working yet?

Nope. In theory you can do it with the right supported hardware but
the Nova-T PCI won't as it has no CAM slot.

> 
> I'm hoping that the system will be capable of recording two programmes,
> whilst simultaneously letting me watch a previously recorded show on the
> xbox.  I don't suppose I'll want to do this that often but it would be nice.

You can do this. Indeed, over Christmas I did so a couple of times :-)

> 
> Since my MB only supports UDMA-2, I'm also thinking of buying an addon PCI
> ATA card.

Go SATA if you can - the cabling is much neater :-) You will probably
need a bit more disc space. I allocated 230G for my video and it's 80%
full now. The thing with SATA is that not all cards work with Linux.
Whatever you go for you should check the linux drivers exist first!

> I'm guessing I won't need any soundcards in a DVB only system?
Presumably not on a backend box.

HTH
Neil
-- 
Neil Milne