[mythtv-users] HD Card Suggestions

[Kevin Kuphal]

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Peter A. Daly <petedaly at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm getting ready to build a new MythTV system and write an article
> about the process and hardware for MythPVR.com.
>
> Currently, I don't have any TV's that can display HD.  My current
> system uses a PVR-350 hooked up to a digital converter box and IR
> blaster.  I'm very happy with end result.
>
> For the new system, I'd like to have a "native" HD card, but I want to
> be able to playback on my non-HD sets without transcoding after
> capture.  Is there a HD card that is supported by MythTV that can do
> real-time downscaling to SD resolution, similar to my digital
> converter box?


I do this.  I have an old-school 40" Sony rear-projection TV.  My backend
uses a combination of PVR-500 tuners and AverMedia A180 HD tuners.  I
display all the content at 1024x768 to my TV through a VGA to NTSC converter
(because that's what the TV likes).  Myth handles all the resolution and
downscaling perfectly.  The only difference is that the HD content is
letterboxed like a DVD on the TV.

I strongly recommend that A180 for an internal PCI HD tuner.  It works out
of the box with the DVB drivers and was simple to set up and (as I have
found) has no issues with multple cards or coexisting with SD tuners.  It
was a simple and straightforward upgrade to add a single A180 tuner to my
system with no other changes.  The biggest challenge is making sure your
frontend can handle decoding the HD (P4 3.2Ghz+) or using an XvMC capable
video card (Nvidia FX5200 AGP) to offload the processing.

Kevin
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