[mythtv-users] Advice on adding a second capture card

[mrwester]

On 1/23/06, John Biundo <johnbiundo at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> mrwester wrote:
> > The blurring you are referring to is deinterlacing artifacts and has
> nothing
> > to do with the capture card- rather the video card/display.
>
> Thanks for that diagnosis.  I've complained about this before, and I've
> certainly heard of deinterlacing artifacts, but I wasn't sure whether
> tha'ts what I was seeing.  By the way, I think the implication from your
> statemet is that some video cards might do better than others w.r.t.
> deinterlacing artifacts, no?  Is there a better alternative to the
> FX5200 w.r.t. eliminating deinterlacing artifacts.  Perhaps the 350?
>
> I've tried playing with a bunch of different settings, but none have
> made much of an improvement.  I would categorize the sports as "barely
> watchable", which is prompting me to have a "pass-through" mode (an a/b
> switch) so that I can watch football "raw from the cable" instead of
> through the PVR.  I was hoping the 350 (mainly via the TV out) might
> provide a little better picture.
>
> >
> > You will probably hear more to the contrary from this list as this
> question
> > has been asked before, but in my hands, the TV-out of the PVR-350 cannot
> be
> > beat for  SD  tv viewing...  When I ran the TV-out of my PVR-350 I saw
> no
> > deinterlacing artifacts and no stutter on the CNN ticker.
> Ahhh... that's what I'm hoping for.  This is exactly what I was asking
> above.
>
> My machine is an
> > XP2900+ and since adding an HDTV tuner I've switched to a FX5200 via DVI
> to
> > a 1280x768 LCD panel running at native resolution.  While HDTV looks
> great,
> > running at about 65% CPU without XvMC for a 1080i stream, in my opinion
> the
> > TV-out of the PVR-350 offers better SD picture without deinterlacing
> > artifacts than the DVI out of my FX5200.
> Sounds good.  My TV is, of course, SD.
>
> > As far as issues when adding another card, if you're staying within the
> > Hauppauge PVR-XXX  world of IVTV, it should be pretty straightforward.
> I would think so.  But I seem to see lots of stuff along the lines of "I
> added a second card and my machine went belly up...".
>
>
> I will say that Michael Dean did remind me of the overscan issue and
mythgame/DVD watching issues-I'd kinda forgotten about that....  Not really
a problem watching TV and using mythtv once you get everything setup
properly, but it makes the the tv-out somewhat useless for other tasks-
because you can't see the whole desktop.  If it's a dedicated mythtv system
this isn't an issue.  And I do believe that the X-driver for the PVR-350 has
improved to the point that people are reporting success watching DVDs
nowadays...  All of Michael Dean's points are very true, but for me the
video quality on tv playback for SD tv justifies the PVR-350 tv out.  Good
luck

Mike
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