[mythtv-users] completely new and have questions before I buy hardware

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Sat Sep 6 00:01:26 UTC 2008


On 09/05/2008 06:31 PM, Brian Wood wrote:
> Kevin Bailey wrote:
>   
>> On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 03:08:17PM -0700, Quenten Griffith wrote:
>>     
>>> Thank you for your quick reply.  I have Time Warner cable so the basic 125
>>> channels of cable would be on the coax.  From what I understand you don't need
>>> the Time Warner box to get those, but you need it to get the HDTV and "On
>>> Demand" channels.  The reason I don't want to get yet another cable box is
>>> becaue they charge around 10 bucks a month per box.
>>>       
>> If coax = cable, then a PVR-350 should work for you after Feb
>> but its really up to the cable company.
>> ...
>> Again, a PVR-350 should work for you.
>>     
> Agreed, but:
>
> Be aware that the support of the built-in mpeg decoding feature of the
> PV-350 is no longer being actively maintained. It still works, and there
> is no plan (that I'm aware of) to eliminate the support, but it is
> possible that some future development might break the support, and it
> might or might not get fixed.
>
> The 350 card, used as a video output device, does not support the OpenGL
>  features that are starting to be included in MythTV. You still have the
> option to not use OpenGL, an option that *should* remain for a long
> time, but...
>
> I wouldn't let that stop me from buying a 350 if I were in your
> position, but you should be aware of the situation.

More importantly, be aware that the PVR-350 is a complete and total 
waste as any relatively modern CPU can decode MPEG-2-encoded SDTV 
without even breaking a sweat.  If you're trying to turn a 200MHz ARM 
processor or a PII 400MHz into a frontend, get the cable-company 
provided PVR--you'll be a lot happier.

I'd say you should look at Athlon XP 2000+ or P4 2GHz era processors as 
a minimum for an SDTV frontend, and they're worth, what, a nickel these 
days (even after the beating the US dollar has taken)?

PVR-350 is an anachronism, but /not/ because it's analog.  It's because 
you don't need a dedicated SDTV MPEG-2 decoder.  That's why you can't 
really buy them any more--Hauppauge, the manufacturer, has been pushing 
the PVR-150 for about 3 years, now because even they realize it.

This is also why (TTBOMK) the devs have absolutely no interest in 
spending the time on maintaining the PVR-350 code.

Welcome to the new millenium of computers.  :)

(So, what about HDTV decoders?  Well, they're completely unnecessary for 
MPEG-2-encoded HDTV, but could be useful today for MPEG-4-AVC-encoded 
HDTV (H.264) /if/ there were any that worked in Linux.  However, by the 
time there is hardware that works in Linux for decoding H.264 HDTV, 
there won't be a need for the decoders...  And, since decoders only 
limit what Myth can do and don't provide any benefits over simply 
selecting an appropriate general-purpose CPU...)

Mike "Software is really just faster-evolving hardware" Dean


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list