[mythtv-users] PVR-350 question

[Ivan Kowalenko]

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On Jul 30, 2006, at 22.34, Joshua Desjarlais wrote:

> Hey yall,
> I'm really new at this, so please bear with me.  I have just been  
> given a relatively new desktop, and I would like to turn it into a  
> mythTV box.

Good for you! I'm sure you'll love it, once you get it up and running.

> I have gotten to a point where i need to pick out hardware, and  
> I've been reading up on capture/output cards.  I hear that the  
> PVR-350 is a good card for this project,

Well, it *was* a good card for the project, back with MythTV 0.18.  
However, 0.19 has dropped official support for the PVR-350's on-board  
video decoder. You'll need to go through a few extra steps to get the  
XVideo output on the PVR-350's TV-Out port. Information can be found  
on the Wiki.

> but i hear that playing back external video not captured and  
> encoded by the card is "pretty bad."

Well, define "pretty bad." As far as visual quality goes, I've heard  
it's actually pretty good, and eliminates any possible problems with  
deinterlacing. However, I've heard mixed results as far as system  
efficiency goes with using XVideo on the PVR-350's TV-Out. Back with  
0.18, though, when using the on-board MPEG-2 decoder, I've heard tell  
that non-MPEG-2 video played through the 350 wasn't that wonderful at  
all.

> And since I'm not all that good of a judge of what's good and bad,  
> if someone could give me an example of what bad looks like, it  
> would be appreciated.  If it helps any, I'll be playing it back on  
> a 32" tube TV via s-video.   Thanks!

It might be more worth your time and money to get an nVidia GeForce  
FX 5200 for your machine, and use its S-Video Out instead, and use a  
PVR-150 for video capture. The 5200 is a reliable card, and will help  
future-proof your Myth system. Depending on your CPU, the 5200 should  
be able to give you enough oomph to process HDTV over the DVI-Out  
port, and allow you to use the OpenGL animated menus that should be  
making their way into 0.20. If you shop smartly, a combination of a  
150 and a 5200 might, possibly, cost less than a 350 (but I haven't  
looked into this recently, so I could be wrong).

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