I see a lot of people who have bought the Hauppauge PVR-250, but is it really the best card? I remember reading a review once that it wasn't such a great encoder because it had an analog tuner instead of a digital tuner and this caused some fuzziness in the capture. I can't find the article anymore, so I don't even know which card they recommended.

If there are some other great cards out there that work with Myth, especially if they're cheaper and produce MPEG2 output, please let me know. I'm a newbie and starting with a fairly conservative base system (<$400). If I can get a good MPEG2 capture card for around $80, why spend $120+ on a PVR-250.

Thanks for your time,

ZhunZi

the reason the pvr250 is so popular is that it has good drivers.

I believe the article you are talking about compared it to and ati card and one other one, the problem is neither of those have linux drivers and thus won't work with mythtv. If you are wanting cheaper and mpeg2 hardware your options at this point are pvr150 or pvr500 however note that both of these are much newer and the driver is still somewhat iffy, but some have had success just search the forums and the wiki.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Awesome, thanks for the quick response. In reading Tier1 & Tier2 it seemed like just about any card works now with a little help. I wasn't sure if pvr250 being the way to go was still the best choice or not. I guess I'll just cough up the $120 and enjoy an easy install. I just got a $5 coupon from buy.com & I already get a 3% discount, so I think I can get it for just under $120 shipped now.

I had a feeling that part of the reason it was so successful was that the analog tuner gave a nice escape from the broadcast flag. I don't think the BF is a problem anymore, so my thoughts were why not go digital.

Thanks again,

ZhunZi

well that and at least in the us an hdtv card is required to recieve a digital signal, and sometimes they are hard to get cause they are only ota. now in other parts of the world dvb is popular and there are many dvb cards that work. the pchdtv3000 and the air2pc are both popular cards and work well. (they are the only two cards that support ATSC the US standard for digital television over the air, and the pchdtv support qam which is the US standard for unencrypted digital signals over cable, thought success with this varries greatly depending on your cable provider.)

oh and neither of those cards support the broadcast flag which at least for now is a non issue anyways.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

(This is cautionary and NOT intended as criticism of the hard work people do around here. The poster said he is a newbie and this post refers to my experience as a newbie who has played with knoppmyth for 2 years.)

Just to chime in on the PVR250, despite all the positive posts all over Myth-dom, there is currently at least one newer version of this card that is definitely not plug-and-go. I decided to bite the bullet and get a PVR250. Absolutely everyone in the know has one and they just glow about them. Right?

Well, I ordered and imagined just popping in the newest knoppmyth and sitting back to enjoy a easy setup. Things did not not go so well. I googled and googled. I have the PVR250 *980* which uses a newer and "better" chip that just happens to require major fiddling to make work. You have to unpack, compile, and configure IVTV which some people have no problem doing and other people never actually make work. Documentation and howto's scattered around cover many different fixes and possibilities, many possible configurations, many versions of myth and ivtv, and even possibly different versions of a card sold as a PVR250. You *will* have to learn to navigate the Linux file system, edit text files, google and search the forums, and probably install your system many times before you get things right. Maybe not, but I am trying to give you a realistic picture as a newbie.

I was successful making this card work with knoppmyth OUTside of myth. I ended up getting video, but no sound INside myth. Outside of myth (say, in tvtime), I get sound. I can play mp3s outside of myth. So...what I might have is an ALSA problem, I might still not know how to properly configure myth, I might not have loaded the correct audio drivers for my sound card. I am not being critical of myth or knoppmyth, but as a newbie, you should know that just buying popular hardware (especially when a company sells new versions of hardware with a VERY similar name) will not necessarily make an easy install. Another thing, if any of this is unfamiliar to you, it won't be by the time you figure out how to install this system. You will just end up learning in the process of working out kinks. This place is a great resource.

Keep this in mind: If $120 is not a major investment for you and you don't mind learning potentially a LOT about your system under the hood, go for it. If you are easily disuaded, splurging on the card, and expect to do nothing but press a few buttons to get a working system, you might be disappointed.

All that said, dive in. The water's fine.

Oh boy! That's what I just bought too, the PVR250 model 980 because I wanted to avoid the MCE version I've heard nothing but trouble from. Well, if you have any success getting it to work, let me know. It looks like I'll be working under the hood sooner than I expected. I wanted to start out with an easy setup and work myself up to customizations, but I guess I'm going to hit the water from the high dive.

sad thing is most of the problems have been worked out of the mce cards now and it's the 980's that are the big troublemakers.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Hopefully by the time I get my other hardware purchased (this was my first buy) to get started someone will have solved the issues and included it in the next release. Otherwise, I think I still remember some C++ from college.

Well Circuit City has the PVR-150's for $60 after rebate right now... It looked like they were the non-MCE ones too.

I've got all my components in place. About to start configuring. I did find a nice article on how to get itv working with the PVR 250 model 980:

http://www.byopvr.com/Sections+index-re ... age-1.html

I'll be blogging my experience as well here:

http://zhunzi.blogspot.com/