[mythtv-users] Hauppage Analog Cards, alternatives?

Mon Sep 1 17:28:35 UTC 2008

Jeff Holicky wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:40:45 -0700, "Derek Archer"
> <eggman97132007 at mac.com> said:
>> Hi all, I just subscribed to the list so forgive me if this question  
>> is already in the current discussions.

Its been discussed off and on.

>> I am looking to build a combination back/frontend box. I am currently  
>> on analog cable and plan to remain so for the forseeable future. I  

So di I, but my cable company has other ideas, see below.

>> have been trying to find a good dual-tuner, dual-encoder analog card.  
>> The Hauppauge PVR-500 is getting VERY difficult to find in my trials,  
>> and I cannot even order them direct from Hauppauge anymore. Their  
>> official word is the the FCC will not let them ship analog cards due  
>> to the DTV transition. They suggested the HVR series, but as far as I  
>> can tell, they are hit or miss on MythTV compatibility.

This is not entirely true.  But, most ATSC capable cards on the market 
today also have an NTSC capable tuner on them.  You will probably be 
able to use either ATSC or NTSC at any one time though as the cards will 
not multitask.  As for the disappearance of the NTSC only cards, 
Hauppauge is looking at a sudden dramatic shift in the numbers of their 
markets.  They may be using the February NTSC broadcast cutoff as an 
excuse, but, face facts, the market for these cards will drop off 
dramatically after the switch.

>> One potential alternative I found is the AverMedia AverTV combo card,  
>> which has an analog tuner w/ encoder as well as a QAM digital tuner.  

Yeah, most current ATSC cards don't have an encoder for NTSC mpeg 
encoding.  Bummer.

>> It is PCI Express x1 card and I would like to know if anyone has had  
>> any luck with this or similar cards from AverMedia, or any other  
>> manufacturer. The resources online I have found seem to be somewhat  
>> outdated in regards to these newer cards.

> I am just at the beginning to build my own MythTV system - and find the
> Hauppauge issues to be quite disturbing.
> 
> First, on the FCC - sounds confusing to me.  Is there something (being
> in Canada EH?) that I am missing wrt analogue to digital conversion?  Is
> the US doing something that is above and beyond what we have in Canada? 
> Right now I rent a cable box - from that I can use
> coax/video/s-video/(component maybe) - to the TV.  To me all that is
> analogue.  Digital would be via HDMI or some Firewire device.  But in
> the end we pay the cable company to get a coax - and then if we want to
> pony up - rent/buy a digital set top to get the extra channels.  (SD /
> HD).   Are my terms wrong?  Is S-VIDEO considered "digital" ?

The FCC has mandated the cessation of NTSC OTA broadcasting.  Cable 
companies have been told that if they continue to provide *any* NTSC 
signals on their cable, that they must continue to provide NTSC versions 
of the local OTA channels to their customers.  A lot of cable companies 
are taking advantage of this to switch over to an entirely digitial 
cable service.  This has a couple of things in their favour.  It frees 
up bandwidth for more digital channels.  And they get to require that 
any customers wanting to remain with NTSC outputs use a cable company 
cable converter box, which means more rental input for the cable 
company.  This 2nd part disturbs me greatly as it is just as easy for 
the cable company to continue to provide their "broadcast basic" service 
in clear QAM so that customers who currently just plug the cable into 
the back of their old analog TVs can just plug the cable into the back 
of their new digital TVs.  (Some) cable companies seem to want to jump 
at the chance to avoid doing this.

> In the US, is there some digital connection being forced by the FCC to
> be adopted?  I thought the FCC was merely removing the analogue
> broadcasts and forced people to get digital via an "OTA" "Satellite" or
> "Cable" set top boxes.  What does ANY of that have to do with the feed
> coming FROM those boxes to the TV?  

See above, the connection is not being forced.  However, it is being 
allowed if the cable company removes all analog signals from their cable 
and go all digital.

> Which brings me to the Hauppauge question - why would the 150, 250, 350,
> 500 (x50/500[/MCE]) units be phased out BECAUSE of the FCC?  The HVR
> seems to still use that old school analogue 125 channel input - so what
> is that all about?  Or is Hauppauge merely using the FCC notice as a
> method to phase out those units for newer ones?

They are disappearing because the market for them will drop off 
dramatically after next February.  I guess they just don't think a 
hardware mpeg encoder isn't necessary anymore.  Mpeg encoding is used 
natively by the digital transmission streams in the US, so ATSC 
recording is basically just writing the incoming stream to disk.  Since 
ATSC doesn't require a hardware encoder, it saves them money to not 
provide one for their NTSC tuner either.

> Which now leads me to this - not sure at this date if any of the HVR
> units are supported (properly) by Myth.  I am starting to look for the
> 150-500 cards and already finding it hard to get a 250.  About 6m ago I
> asked and many suggested the 250 over the x50/500 was the better way to
> go.  I want to start with 2 set top boxes and eventually to 4 (could be
> 2x250 or 4x250 or 2x250, 2xHDHR etc etc).  Now what?

I have a PVR-350 and an HD-PC5000.  When my cable company switches over, 
I'll switch from primarily using the 350 to using the 5000.  I'll 
probably lose a *bunch* of basic cable channels in the process.  B^(  If 
so, I'll have to re-think how my setup is wired.

> The other negative is the capital to get this all going properly - I was
> actually thinking of getting a retail 150 or 250 to hookup under WinXP
> until I am ready to move to the Myth system - but even that is a problem
> it seems.  Some suggest "instead of a 150/500 get the 150MCE / 500MCE" -
> I assume that works well with Myth but seeing as I am not running MCE -
> I assume my WinXP would not support those cards.  True?

I'm pretty sure that the PVR cards come with windows drivers, whether 
you are running MCE or not.

> So big picture - anybody know of a game plan I should take - should I be
> waiting until the HVR cards are more mature wrt Myth/Linux development? 
> Will I be able to buy 2 HVR cards and still record SD programming as I
> would with the x50/500 series?  (once the drivers are working well)?
> 
> Sounds like getting an older x50/500 series card is not the right move
> today as I am buying legacy/future unsupported hardware.

That all depends on how long your cable company waits before switching 
from mixed analog/digital to all digital.  If the period of time is a 
couple of years, you answer might be different.  But, if you can view 
the digital versions of these channels in clear QAM on your cable today, 
why play with the PVR cards at all.  Just start in on the digital 
"cards" (I include the HD Home Run in this category, which really isn't 
a card, but an external box that is connected via ethernet).

> Thoughts?

Good Luck with your new system.  I'm sure you will get lot's of fun out 
of building it and getting it to work correctly in the beginning!

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)