[mythtv-users] Suggestions for choice of hybrid tuners, probably USB based

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:09:51 -0500, you wrote:

>I recently devoted some effort into determining why I was getting 0B recordings, 
>only to discover that my PVR500 had died. It was still being recognized and the 
>driver loaded without err - it just failed to provide any MPEG output. This 
>failure was confirmed by replacing the PVR500 with a PVR250 that I had in a drawer.
>
>I have recovered in the short term by purchasing another PVR500 on E-bay, but I 
>need a longer-term solution. First of all, the PVR500 population is dwindling. 
>Secondly, Time-Warner is likely to pull the plug on analog TV and force me to 
>switch to digital. As I only have SD TVs with analog tuners, this switch will be 
>expensive, and I wish to delay it as long as possible.
>
>In the meantime, I would like to acquire new tuners that will work with my 
>current analog signal, but also handle the digital input when I am forced to 
>switch. My motherboard has one PCIe X1 slot, and 2 PCI slots. One of the latter 
>can be replaced by a PCIe X16 card. As I need a minimum of 3 tuners and 4 is 
>preferred, I expect that external devices would be better.
>
>What are my options for such tuners that work with MythTV?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Larry

I do not know of any USB analogue or hybrid tuners that do the MPEG
encoding onboard as the PVR-500 does.  If you have a modern CPU (eg
quad core) that might not matter, but with an older motherboard you
may run out of CPU.