Not sure if this is a Myth topic or Hardware topic, I'll move if required. I'm basically looking for advice on which direction to move to next.

Anyway, after reading various Myth and Knoppmyth wiki articles , forum posts, and Myth web based docs over the past few weeks I began tinkering with the RTjpeg and MPEG-4 settings and the profiles for Default/Live/High etc.

1ghz Duron, 512MB RAM, bttv878 frame grabber geforce MMX440 output to 19" CRT (for now). I'm running from a direcTV OUT to the 878 card.

Question#1
Basically, the "Default" settings I occasionally, then more frequently , "stop and go" video & audio while watching Live TV. Meaning, your watching and every 4 seconds it pauses then continues as normal for a few seconds, rinse repeat for hours. Live TV was:

RTjpeg, 170 compression (on the slider) , default all other setting, NO transcoding, I turned that Off, and tried each setting one at a time, didn't seem to matter much if at all.

Changing compressiong to 160 on the slider but resolution to 544x480 (for "Tivo like quality according to Myth docs), and MP3 audio to "9" from "7" seemed to help, no more choppy. No great quality, but bearable.

I read in the myth docs that getting your CPU to 90% in use by the backend, for recording, was as high as you want to go (obviously). I bumped High quality (for recordings) to MPEG-4, 544x480, audio at 7, everything else default. CPU gets to 65% on average, no frontend running on same PC at the time. Quality is improved but not nearly as dramatic as I thought it would be.

Any additional setting change, like Enable Better Quality check boxes on the MPEG-4 GUI window, result in 99% CPU usage. Seems like I hit a wall with video quality on this setup (Needs to be better, vertical lines with some static-y horizontal lines in 3 blocks, like a reception issue almost).


Perhaps upgraging to PVR-150 or better would make the quality better ? Howabout a 250 ? The Wiki states the 250 is "better" but, how much "better" ? I'm looking for it to be as good, or 98% as good, as regular "TV" through my TiVo. Most posts I see here, basically even people with 250's and 350's have video quality issues. Is it a "just deal with it" scenario?


Question #2
When I move this to the TV, instead of computer room using CRT monitor, how will the audio/video work (connection wise). Meaning, right now, the coax runs to the framgrabber, a small audio out connection from the bttv card to my audio card gets the audio to it and Myth software coordinates the audio and video feeds.

If I use RCA cables to the card, the grabber has a yellow video IN, but no audio in. My geforce has Svideo and RCA video out, but what about the audio ? Do I just pick red or white , put a 3.5cm adapter on it for the audio card line in straight from the DirectTV receiver?