[mythtv-users] Tuner recomendation for trial system

[Cymen Vig]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:47 AM, allene222 <nabble at oldpaloalto.com> wrote:
>
>  I want to see if my P4-2.4G can do OTA HDTV.  I was thinking of an HDHR but a
>  little steep for a trial system in case it doesn't work out.  I do not need
>  QAM as this is an ATSC only system.  I see Air2PC cards on ebay for not much
>  and pvr-150s for somewhat more.
>
>  I have a large outdoor antenna with pre-amp and am about 40 miles from the
>  transmitter.  My projector is 720p.  My video card is a new eVGA 7200.
>
>  Anyone care to chime in and share their experiences.

The PVR-150 can't do ATSC. The Air2PC can. In general, I'm happy with
my Air2PC cards. I've got two in my system and occasionally one
refuses to initialize properly on the rare reboot. Fussing around
usually gets it working again but it can get annoying. This is
happening with multiple motherboards but the same cards and it is hard
to pinpoint the problem. The problem is fairly rare. Note that a
firmware file needs to be loaded on boot (uses bcm3510 DVB module).

For long term use, one downside to the Air2PC cards is that the tuners
appear to consume power no matter what their state is and they do run
warm to hot. I haven't tried removing the modules when MythTV isn't
recording to see if that helps (already have MythTV setup to access
the cards only when recording). When the system is power cycled it
takes a couple of minutes for the tuners to be able to function so
perhaps this is the reason for active consumption during idle (to keep
latency to video low).

In terms of function, they work very well for me. I have the same
reception setup -- large antenna outside with preamp and 40 miles from
transmitters (Madison, WI).

The P4 2.4 Ghz with XvMC should work. It might be borderline. I just
upgraded my a Celeron D 340 (2.93 Ghz) which is a fairly hot CPU to a
Celeron 420 (new Celeron-L which is 1/2 of Core 2 Duo cpu -- 8 watts
at idle with C1E and 35 watts max). I'm ecstatic with the lower power
consumption and low temperatures. The Celeron e1200 (dual core 420
basically) consumes a bit more power but would probably be more ideal
for a combined frontend/backend if you run commercial flagging. My new
system consumes 84w at idle, 94w watching HD content, and 100w running
at full CPU utilization measure by P3 Kill-A-Watt.