I suppose I should include a 5th option:<br>
<br>
ample cash and time: HDTV is here, it's real, and it can be recorded. <br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 11/2/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">Chris Ribe</b> <<a href="mailto:chrisribe@gmail.com">chrisribe@gmail.com
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I used a 1Ghz PIII w/ a bt878 card for awhile as a backend/frontend
system. Using a resolution of something like 480x372 and
RTJPEG, I was able to play/pause live TV without any stuttering. <br>
<br>
I ended up using the PIII exclusively as a backend, though, and using a
PII 450Mhz as a front end. With that setup I was able to record
and playback 640x480 RTJPEG. <br>
<br>
That said, the picture quality with the bt878 card was crap. I
recently purchased a PVR-150 and was delighted with the picture quality
during the 3 hours that it actually worked. The downside, of
course, is that I haven't been able to get it to work reliably. <br>
<br>
So, my advice, depending on cash/time at hand would be:<br>
<br>
ample cash/no time: Get a PVR-350, easily the most supported card in the MythTV community.<br>
<br>
ample time/short cash: Get a PVR-150 and figure out how to get it working. <br>
<br>
little time or cash: Find an old sub $100 computer on eBAy or your local classifieds to use as a frontend.<br>
<br>
just plain broke: Record at 320x240 and pretend you have the world's biggest iPod.<div><span class="e" id="q_107540b3f621aed9_1"><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 11/2/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">Michael T. Dean
</b> <<a href="mailto:mtdean@thirdcontact.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
mtdean@thirdcontact.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">On 11/02/05 18:32, Todd Houle wrote:<br><br>> I have been raving about MythTV to a friend of mine who finally
<br>> decided to try it himself. He had an old PC (1GHz Dell GX150) and 2<br>> old tuner cards (avermedia and hauppauge win-Tv). I don't know the<br>> details of the cards other than they both use the bt878 chips.
<br>><br>> We installed KnoppMyth as that is what he heard about elsewhere.<br>> KnoppMyth detected everything perfectly and ran great. I added the<br>> cards in Myth-setup, but we couldn't use it happily. There was a 1
<br>> second pause, for every second of live tv... I guess these cards<br>> don't have hardware MPEG encoders on them and the computer couldn't<br>> handle the load.. I lowered the quality way down, but still couldn't
<br>> get a smooth playback..<br>><br>> I told him to get a better computer, or a TV card that supports<br>> hardware encoding. Was I right? or was there something else I could<br>> have done?<br><br>Yep. Although you might be able to make something work with RTJPEG (at
<br>least for a single tuner), it's not worth the effort and the<br>compromises, IMHO. And make sure he has Xv support for the video card<br>(probably won't be an issue with a newer system, but might be with the<br>old one).
<br><br>Mike<br>_______________________________________________<br>mythtv-users mailing list<br><a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">mythtv-users@mythtv.org
</a><br><a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users</a><br></blockquote></div><br>
</span></div></blockquote></div><br>