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 Post subject: Tvcards for myth
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:15 pm 
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Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:14 pm
Posts: 8
Really need some help with choosing hardware for my htpc.
Grafic card will be some gx5200fx with dvi.

But the main problem is tvcards. Ive looked at the following:
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.asp?sku=301332&cks=PLC
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.asp?sku=121297&cks=PRL
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.asp?sku=302811&cks=PRL
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.asp?sku=111794&cks=PRL

Im looking for a cheap card that is as compatible as possible
with mainly mythtv, need a card that works without 2 days of tweaking.

PVR-150 is kindoff my limit moneywise, but if its significantly better
than the other cards i guess its worth it.
You know wich of this cards that works best/most compatible in mythtv of
the ones mentioned? Or i should go for a completely different card(then what card)?

Unfortunatly i havent found any single complete compabilitylist for tvcards so..

Another thing... Anyone know if any/all remotes and receivers that comes
with the cards above works with lirc? I feel the best thing would get a
complete package that works..

Thx alot for any info you can provide..


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 3:40 pm 
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Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:44 am
Posts: 677
Location: WA
Well it would help to know the specs on the computer you have.. but even still most people (including me) will tell you to go hauppauge!

the 150 is ok, though NOT supported out of the box yet. <tweaking required>
the pvr250's are harder to find but work well out of the box..

if it was me 250 all the way, but there is some help on the forum of getting a 150 to work. and support for the 150 is blazing ahead at a rapid pace.

As far as teh remote is concerned.. if it came with the hauppauge its works fine.. If you want to have pretty much ANY remote to work with your system you need to build an IR receiver or buy an IRman. that will work with all remotes i have heard of.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:09 pm 
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
I keep pointing folks to the following page i wrote up for the Wiki:
http://knoppmythwiki.homelinux.org/index.php?page=PickingComponents
The advice is generic and the recommendations are conservative but the logic holds true. One way or another you've got to:

    - provide enough horsepower for encoding - the PVRs do this for you

    Otherwise you need a fast enough CPU to encode to rtjpeg and then usually transcode to mpeg4, plus you need to configure that.

    - provide a way to capture sound - the PVR cards do this for you

    Otherwise you need some hook up with your soundcard so it can record the audio portion of the shows, and need to work through the various setup, config and sync headaches with that. This also takes extra CPU attention.
Nice to haves:

    - a remote - many of the PVRs provide one for you


An ex-girlfriend taught me that you trade time for money and money for time, so if you figure your time as being worth even minimum wage then the PVRs are generally a bargain.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:11 pm 
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Posts: 369
Note that recent discussions on the ivtv developers list have indicated that the reason some folks who are testing the newer builds of ivtv are having their newly purchased PVR-250 cards recognized as PVR-150s is because these new PVR-250s *ARE* PVR-150s at the hardware level (even if not at the marketing level). And IIRC, the ivtv shipped with R5A12 isn't so hot about pvr-150s.

Also, most "real" PVR-250 cards will not work without some tweaking of the ivtv config. Well in R5A12 anyway. Unless the tuner really *is* of type "2". :)

With that said...of your options, I suspect that the PVR-150 is the best choice. Why? With the sudden uplift in ivtv-0.3.x coding and testing recently, and especially with the backporting (to ivtv-0.2.x) efforts going on at the same time as the knoppmyth R5 series development, I suspect it won't be too long before pvr-150's "just work" or "work with just a line or two tweaked in the ivtv config file" for everyone.

Then Hauppauge will go and swap components again, making everyone go nuts (again). :)

-brendan


Last edited by brendan on Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:19 pm 
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
brendan wrote:
Unless the tuner really *is* of type "2". :)

Mine is. ;-) And Cecil already has that checked off on his list of things to fix anyway. 8)


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:06 pm 
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Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:14 pm
Posts: 8
Sorry for missing it, my pc i have scraped together is a
Athlon XP 1800(512MB ram)+ with a 200GB disk
And as i mentioned i planned on buying a 5200fx card or similar with dvi out. I am actually having a primary need of using it for dvds.
Was planning on buying a dvdplayer with dvi first but threw some dvds into the plasma with my mainpc through dvi and was suprisedhow big the qualitydifference where compared to my old dvdplayer through scart.
Since dvd players with dvi starts at 2000SEK(for taiwan style players) and walk upwards in cost and the fact i could (with a fx5200 and a for example pctv) compose a mythtvbox for 1000SEK with what i have lying around i kinda switched track. No harm in being able to record some simpsons episodes as a bonus feature ;) Aka the tv part is not the most essential for me so dont need some highend expensive card. But i DO need something that is compatible since my linuxskills is still somewhat limited.

If a PVR-250 is the only secure solution perhaps its worth 1200SEK, but since a pctv costs 500SEK i find it interesting to see if its an alternative


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:14 pm 
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Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:14 pm
Posts: 8
Unsure of wheater im going to use knoppmyth or not though. Thought a bit of going gentoo, but time will tell. Tried knoppmyth on my htpc whit just a crap pci graphics card before just for fun. And had some problems, mainly with the dvdplaying part. It cut back to the main menu before showing dvd menus...strange problem. Though sound and video seemed to work otherwis. Perhaps some videorelated problem but..


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:20 pm 
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Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:14 pm
Posts: 8
Oh and regarding remotes: My thought was trying to get a package where both receiver and remote could be used, without building/buying generic receivers.

Aanother point is that pvr-250 seems hard to get hold of today, but pvr-150 is sold everywhere. So i would prefer a pvr-150 since i could buy it locally. But if i understand correctly, hauppage ir/remote packages can be used?


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:18 am 
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Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:14 pm
Posts: 8
I actually went and ordered a gainward fx5200 w dvi + a hauppage pvr-150 so ill see how it goes.
Saw there was some guides regarding the card so hopefully i will get it to work with a little tweaking.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:28 am 
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Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:44 am
Posts: 677
Location: WA
sounds like the 150 is actualy becoming the best bet.. unless you can find an old 250.. from what i hear the 150's are working 99% and any bug still around a being squashed at a much faster rate then happened with the 250.
good luck.. and READ ALL the 150 howto's


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 11:49 am 
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Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:04 pm
Posts: 369
Stabil wrote:
And had some problems, mainly with the dvdplaying part. It cut back to the main menu before showing dvd menus...strange problem. Though sound and video seemed to work otherwis. Perhaps some videorelated problem but..


If the issue is that the DVDs wouldn't play, it's probably because knoppmyth doesn't ship with the illegal-in-the-US method of playing encrypted commercial DVDs. That's about all that can be said about that.

-brendan


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:06 pm 
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Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:14 pm
Posts: 8
Ok, didnt know that. Anyway i saw som discussions regarding that with the solution to switch from mplayer so think ill do that.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2005 2:23 pm 
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Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 2:12 pm
Posts: 152
Location: Raleigh, NC
I just bought a PVR-250 from a guy on EBAY and it worked (after changing tuner type to 50 in R5A12, didn't need to change anything with 15.1). Searching on EBAY there are plenty of 250/350's for a fair price. You can even find the right chipset as most people take pictures of the card and you can clearly read the important things on the tuner.

Next step is my pcHDTV 3000 which is on it's way. After that (and some more driver development) I'm getting a PVR-500 and both my wife and I will be happilly replacing our cable company issued DVR.


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