PC Hardware:
Intel III, 600Mhz
196MB RAM
60GB HD

KnoppMyth:
R5E50

I am new to PVR and KnoppMyth. My goal is to set up a system that would allow me to record analog satellite TV or to record and playback (i.e. watch one channel and record another channel at the same time). I would prefer it to work right out of the box.
My research on this forum makes me believe, that I should be able to do this with either one of the following TVTuner cards:
Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-150 PCI Interface Tuner Card
Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-350 PCI Interface Tuner Card
Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-500 MCE PCI Interface Tuner Card
My question is do either one of these cards work with R5E50 and my PC hardware (I am concerned about the processor speed)?
Maybe someone with a similar setup could give me some advise?!

Thanks!

Well I can tell you this if you want to watch one channel and record another you need 2 tuners.... either dual 150's or dual 350's or a 150 and a 350 or one 500 since it is already a dual tuner..... Another thing to think about is on that low of a system is your video out, are you planning to go to a TV or a Comp Monitor? If you’re going to go with TV I would suggest the pvr-350 as it has onboard decoding, and coax output. And I have not tested the 350 or 500 but the 150’s do work in a P3 700 I set up.

HOWEVER from what I have read to actually watch a program and have the PVR actually record a different one at the same time it is my understanding you want a CPU closer to 1Gig now it may work on that slower CPU but might be choppy and stuff

Another thing to consider is your hard drive space…. It takes about 1Gig per hour for a decent codex…. Possibly a bit less if you go DIVX

I would also suggest adding more ram if you can… again bringing it closer to 1Gig will help tremendously.

_________________
PVR
Amd64x2 3800+
2Gig Ram
64Meg Nvidia PCI-E LP W/Video out
Dual WinTV-PVR-150MCE-LP
200Gig U-ATA/100 Hard Drive

60GB is a little on the small end of what I'd consider
acceptible. That'll hold 20-50 hours of MPEG2 recordings
(depending on bitrate settings). That sounds like a lot, but
you'll soon wish you had more disk space.

A setup with a 150 + 350 will work swimmingly. The '350
includes HW MPEG2 decoding, so it requires very little CPU.

I've used the 350 with a CPU quite a bit slower than a 700MHz
PIII, and it never used more than 10-15% of the CPU when
simultaneously recording and playing back.

Unless he's using a 350 HW decoder as the output device. With
something like a 150+350, He can easily record 2 shows while
watching a 3rd recorded program.

_________________
Grant

WOW, you can actually do 3 streams at same time on a P3-600 nice... Ill have to buy a 350 and test the limits of my junk boards sitting around.

When I said watch one channel I was assuming he wanted to watch live TV and record a second live TV channel...

Whats your opinion about runing a BACKEND.... how many tuners do you think a P3-700 could record at the same time?

_________________
PVR
Amd64x2 3800+
2Gig Ram
64Meg Nvidia PCI-E LP W/Video out
Dual WinTV-PVR-150MCE-LP
200Gig U-ATA/100 Hard Drive

I used to run a '350 with a 1GHz C3 CPU. My guess is that's
roughly equivalent to a 500MHz PIII. I could do 2 streams (one
record and one playback) without getting over 15% CPU usage. I
would guess a CPU of that class could easily handle at least
5-7 streams. If you're using PVR x50/500 cards, the cards are
doing all of the encoding/decoding and transferring all of the
data to/from RAM using DMA. All the CPU has to do is
read/write the data to/from disk (which is also done using
DMA).

For things like fancy visualizations during music playback, a
sub-1GHz machine using a '350 for output will fall over pretty
hard due to the combination of a slow CPU and a slow video
card. The '350 is brilliant at playing back standard definition
MPEG2 streams, but as a general-purpose video card doing stuff
like OpenGL, it's dog-slow.

_________________
Grant

VERy nice so a P3-500 you say could easily handle upward of 6-7 diferent streams so long as your useing a Hardware baised encodeing..... thts VERY nice to know because i am looking to set up a MBE and it will only record and not playback so i should be able to use my p3-700 with no problem....

_________________
PVR
Amd64x2 3800+
2Gig Ram
64Meg Nvidia PCI-E LP W/Video out
Dual WinTV-PVR-150MCE-LP
200Gig U-ATA/100 Hard Drive

Everyone seems to be missing a key element here. He/she/it is using cable/satellite boxes and is going to need one of those for each concurrent stream he wants to capture as well as some means of controlling them...

Also as someone else said, more RAM is definitely recommended, especially for a lower spec box where buffering is going to help cover any latency issues. Finally, make sure that DMA is supported with your motherboard's chipset and hard drive for the same reason.

I actually have two satellite tuners (Dish) in my house: one in our kitchen the other one in the living room. I was considering placing my PVR in the living room, splitting the signal off (with signal enhancer) from the kitchen and running it over to the living room, but I don't find this a satisfactory solution. Most of the programs that I want to record are reruns and are on several nights a week, so I decided to just go for one tuner. The 350 seems to be the best choice. I will be using it with a TV (CRT tube, Fq 60Hz, Coax and RCA and SVHS in). I don't want to spend much money. I have two identical Pentium IIIs. The motherboard supports 3 RAM slots, several (5?) standard PCI slots and three AGPs. The bays can hold two media devices and two HDs, so I think I am in good shape!
I wish Hauppauge made a USB2 box equivalent to the 350 PCI card.
I was surprised to see that the 350s are somewhat hard to find. Amazon carries them (I am not a fan!), but Newegg doesn't.
Anyway, I really appreciate every ones feedback!

Cheers!