<I am relatively new here so forgive me if I am treading into forbidden territory>

A lot of people are soliciting advice about the *best* video capture cards to buy to use with their Myth HTPC system. What amazes me most is that resoundingly I keep hearing PVR-150/250/350 or some other analog card. It amazes me because if I told you that I was going to sell you something for $150 and it would stop working in 3-4 years, you'd tell me to go fly a kite or else sell it for less. That is exactly what you are doing with any analog capture card.

I know that most people see this as a hobby and will replace all their cards (n x $150 = ???) in 3-4 years to keep up with the tv industry. I totally understand that. What I don't want to see is a bunch of disappointed people who dropped big bucks for a system that won't even capture what they can get from an aerial antenna (remember when the cable picture was better than an aerial picture?) Currently, the 'new' accepted date for crossover is sometime in 2009.

Now there are a lot of reasons to stick with analog and you could argue that you can still use a cable box and you still have the analog tv anyway. I support that, that's probably where I'll be, with an analog TV (minus the cable bill).

Now that I look back, I don't know why I am writing this other than that I haven't heard anyone mention obsolescence in regards to the most expensive single-purpose device in the box, the tuner.

I know myself (and my upgrade habits) and know that my box will sit in my entertainment system for at least three (or four) years. I'm hoping that it won't be an obsolete hunk-of-junk by then (but I know it will be) and hopefully it will still work.

I don't know what my hardware recommendation would be, but it would definitely be a cheap analog card or a digital one. Then again, I couldn't bring myself to pay for cable anymore so maybe I am just cheap.

Sorry for the post, but it came to me as I mentally talked myself out of buying a PVR-500 since I know it has a limited useful life. Then again, a lot can happen in four years...

Anybody else have thoughts on this?

It seems that we're heading in the direction of Firewire/IEEE1394 (yes, I know it's the same thing) for digital capture. What's really nebulous right now is how DRM/Copy Protection schemes are going to play out. It's very scary to think that, if the MPAA has it's way, PVR's will be limited to out of the box, closed sourced Microsoft implementations (or similar) and that open source will be completely out of the loop. What we just don't know at this point are things like:

a) will 5C copy protection be implemented that will prevent unencrpyted links between firewire devices?
b) will cable companies go to a fully encrypted channel lineup?
c) will there be 480p output available over firewire if a & b are true?
d) will it be possible to write closed source drivers that can play nice with Linux?
e) will a "DVD John" type step up and crack these various controls?
f) will the FCC make it unnecessary to worry about all of this by protecting our fair use rights?

Don't get me wrong. I believe strongly in paying for content and protection of content developers rights. I don't have any pirated content of any consequence (and never will). But I do believe in fair use.

I think that most folks are just working with what's available right now. If you want to stand around and wait for the next big thing, don't build a PVR right now. Digital capture still hasn't fully shaken out...

BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if cesman moves this to "off topic".

My 2¢

- People are generally asking about something that works today.

- There simply isn't all that much HD content out there or nearly as many ATSC channels available to most people as NTSC. (I forget what the most recently reported % of people using cable/satellite rather than OTA is, but it's like 90%)

- The majority of TV's currently out there still only handle NTSC resolutions.

- As a result the basic recommendation for something that works reliably today is an NTSC card, with a ATSC card being much more of a "YMMV" thing.

Just for instance... I live in an area with a pretty decent number of ATSC stations already on line. I'm also just 8 miles from the broadcast tower for 80% of these (including WGBHDT) so just about any antenna should work. Unfortunately my "line of sight" isn't good and there is also a HUGE amount of RF noise in my area (obvious from experiences with mobile phones, cordless phones, RF keyboards, ...). For the moment I've given up on getting a clean ATSC signal OTA, and the cable system doesn't seem to be playing fair with the QAM versions of the local stations.

On the other hand my NTSC PVR-250 just plain works...

I agree with all of this however... While there are alot of people getting HD over the air AND OTA is often the best quality, most folks will be wanting to record off their satellite or cable tv feeds. This means unencrypted QAM, 1394 or some as yet undefined linux driver that can decrypt encrypted cable via a cablecard interface. While I would LOVE to see a PCI card that would accept a cablecard, something tells me that Hades will freeze over before something like that hits linux.

To your point though, what works today, and for most folks works well, is a hardware encoding mpeg2 card like a PVR-250 with an NTSC signal. Well put tjc.

You know I guess I should be happy that I seem to get as many channels as I do. Living in Florida I don't seem to have quite the problem with multi-path as others do, and have recently stopped paying for television.

Now if only I can get that Air2PC card working on Knoppmyth! I have seen it work in Windoze so I have "seen the top of the mountains....and it is good!"

Thanks,

Shawn