I'm interested in building a MythTV box, but I'm still doing a lot of reading to understand the hardware requirements. One thing that is really confusing me is the PVR350. It has tv-in and tv-out with hardware encoding, so I'd assume it's the only video card I need in the system. However, when I look at the datasheet on the Hauppauge site, the system requirements for the card include "VGA card (PCI or AGP) which supports video overlay (NVidia, S3, ATI, etc.)". Does this mean that I need another video card in the system besides the 350?

I think you can use the 350 as the TV out card but in order to set stuff up, you still need a VGA card of some kind.

plus the bios is not going to see the pvr350 as a video card, and most likely will just beep at you instead of booting.

So basically, I *need* another video card, but it will only be used during setup while connected to a monitor, right? If this is the case...I should just buy the cheapest card I can find, right?

Another quick question...for those who use the pvr250, what is a good card to use for your tv-out?

I'm happy with my Geforce 4.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

if you are going to use a video card for tvout I would suggest a nvidia card. they are just better supported and much easier to set up. I personally would suggest a 4mx or newer. The older ones work fine, you just usually have to use nvtv to get the picture the right size.

cards,

you can use any cheap VGA-out video card to first configure the system. in my case i used the on-board video on a small form factor PC. once you have everything up and running, you can do maintenance etc via ssh or via the MythTV user GUI. note, you *may* be able to take out your video card once you are all set up, but some BIOS's don't like that. i'd simply get a $15 VGA card and leave it in, just in case of MythBrick. you'll need it then anyway.

for more detail on setting up the PVR350 on a "headless" (No VGA monitor) system, read this thread:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=804

the TV-out on the PVR350 is somewhat cumbersome to set up at this point in time -- but on the other hand it is worth it IMHO. my friend at work has a PVR250 + Nvidia TV-out card, and i have a PVR350. we can't straight up compare as his source (digital cable) is different from my source (sat), but i will say this: the PVR350 TV-out is within a gnat's eyelash of the Real Thing. switching inputs from real TV to MythTV on my big screen really shows that the PVR350 is doing a heck of a job turning the TV signal into bits and back again. the PVR250 + Nvidia setup is a tad less "there".

jim