[mythtv-users] Advice on Building a Quiet MythTV Box?

[Nick Morrott]

On 29/11/2008, Paul Gardiner <lists at glidos.net> wrote:

>  So, yes, perhaps these are all hardware problems, but it seems
>  to me there is no good hardware for MythTV to drive SD TVs,
>  except perhaps ancient ATI cards. Certainly, no one has been able
>  to suggest anything that will definitely output PAL timings on
>  VGA, or any other fool proof way to drive my SD TV that will give
>  results as good as my DVRs.  If alternatively it really is settings
>  then what settings might it be? I have all postprocessing turned
>  off I believe.

As I'm sure I've written before, the best quality I've seen for PAL
TV-out (with the equipment I have) was from a PVR-350 outputting
directly to my Sony WEGA CRT. I originally went this route in 2004/05
because the driver support for PAL TV out was broken in the ATI fglrx
driver, and my box was using an integrated chipset. No TV display
problems at all that I can remember, perfect interlacing and vibrant
colour. The downside with using the PVR-350 back then as an X display
device was the lack of any ability to play non-MPEG-2 content.

For some years now I've used an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro card coupled to a
homebuilt VGA-> SCART cable with that TV, for both DVB-T and analog
video capture from a PVR-150 from a cable box. I use kernel
deinterlace and am more than satisfied with the great image quality
(although I have no frame of reference to compare it to an OTS
FreeView PVR in terms of video output).

Other frontends currently use 720p-ready TFT monitors, but as I'm
still only playing with DVB-S at the moment and there's such a small
amount of HD content broadcast, and the TV still gives an amazing
image, like you we're in no hurry to replace it.

The PVR-350 was used up until very recently as a capture device when
we got rid of our second cable box, so has still been a useful
investment. Due to the inherent disadvantages of using one as a
general multi-purpose display device though, I very much doubt I'lll
ever go back to using it as such.

Nick

-- 
Nick Morrott

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