[mythtv-users] Questions about Hauppauge Freestyle

[Brian Wood]

On May 14, 2006, at 11:37 AM, Marc Barrett wrote:

> I am in the early stages of building a MythTV box.  I really  
> haven't even bought the tuner card yet.  I am looking really,  
> really longingly at the Hauppauge 350, as it would place the  
> minimum load on my old, slow boat-anchor Gentoo box, but I have not  
> been able to save up enough for it yet.  I recently came across  
> some conflicting descriptions about something called the Hauppauge  
> 'Freestyle'.  Most sites say it has both MPEG encoding and decoding  
> like the 250, but there are conflicting accounts about whether or  
> not the encoding/decoding can be used simulteneously, like the  
> 350.  It appears to use the 250 drivers, so I suspect it can't.

I think you mean "350" as far as having encoding and decoding on board.

One of the big advantages of the 350 is the very good-looking TV-out,  
without that a lot of its appeal would go away.

The freestyle seems to be disappearing quickly, NewEgg pulled it  
recently, as did several other vendors, without comment. It was  
apparently sold as an OEM board with nothing but the card supplied,  
perhaps the MCE system vendors didn't like it being sold on the free  
market ?

I'd give serious thought to a "standard" PVR-150/GeForce-5200 combo,  
it works for an awful lot of folks and is probably the best-supported  
SD setup available for Myth, plus you can buy it a piece at a time

>
> I know the 'Freestyle' doesn't have TV out, or the remote, but I  
> don't have much use for either.  I just want something cheap, with  
> both MPEG encoding and decoding in hardware.  Could someone clear  
> some things up about the Freestyle?

I'd stay away from something that's fast disappearing from vendor  
sites, is likely to limit you to SD, with questionable support and no  
TV-Out.