I wasn't sure how to word the subject line so it would make the most sense... my question is:

Is the video out on the tv tuner card the same as having a monitor attached to the cpu tower? Or does the output from the tuner card only show the program interface for MythTV (or BeyondTV for instance, if you were using windows.)

Perhaps a stupid question, but I'm confused as to why a PVR computer would even need a video card, unless the above scenario of mythtv output only is true.

Can anyone clear that up for me? Thanks.

It really depends on the graphics card itself. These days we have dual-head cars, which support one or more monitors. But dont confuse these cards with cards that have SVIDEO out, which is much different. SVIDEO sends the signal to a television (or device) that accepts SVIDEO input. This port is round, and has maybe 8 or 9 pins (never counted them so I dont know for sure), and varies from the d-shaped 15-pin VGA connecter that standard monitors connect to.

Hope this answers your question.

Ok, I had noticed that some video cards have an S-Video out... which I assumed I could jack right into my TV if I wanted... so thats good.

What about tuner cards like the PVR-350 that have a coaxial out, which lets you plug the tv signal from the tuner card back into the main tv? Will that carry the monitor signal from the computer?

You never want to use a coax connection from any piece of video equipment to your TV unless you can't avoid it (as in it's a very very old TV and your only option for connecting is a coax cable and tuning to Ch 3 or 4).

A coax connection is way worse than a composite connection (yellow RCA plug), which is way worse than an S-video connection, which is a little worse than a component connection.

The PVR-350's strength is its hardware MPEG2 decoding, which is good for playback of MPEG2 recordings.

Most tuner cards don't provide tv-out. Usually the Svideo is for input not output. Almost all cards that do video in and out are NOT supported. The exception is the PVR-350 which does work.

Here is what I think is the order of preference for PC-to-TV connections. Start at the top and work your way down until you find one that your tv supports. Then see if your budget supports a gfx card that will provide that type of connection.
0 - HDMI (Digital from pc to tv)
1 - DVI (Digital from pc to tv)
2 - VGA
3 - Component
4 - Svideo
5 - Composite
6 - Coax

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Hi Nephilim,

Most general purpose compters require a video card to be able to get to the boot stage. It goes through and checks for memory, floppy drive, hard drive, cdrom, com ports, printer port, etc and also the video. So short answer, yes you do need a video most of the time.

The screw on coax connections on the PVR350 (type F) is for RF in to the card. One is for radio (not really used yet in myth) and the second one is for the tv rf from your cable, cable box or antenna or other rf sources.

The dongle cable will output video and audio once the system has been properly set up. You can split the output so only tv / tv recordings are output on to the dongle cable with all the menus being displayed on a computter monitor. Normally, most set it up for all to tv or all to a cpu monitor. (yes / no)

An install of R5C7 should bring up the question if you would like to use tv out, if you choose yes, it should switch to that mode so be sure you have a tv monitor available. Also DO NOT select boot splash as it will cause a failure on reboot. Fixable, but a pain that is not needed. You don't really need it anyway when using tv out.

Hope that is what you were looking for..
Mike

Hi Nephilim,

Most general purpose compters require a video card to be able to get to the boot stage. It goes through and checks for memory, floppy drive, hard drive, cdrom, com ports, printer port, etc and also the video. So short answer, yes you do need a video most of the time.

The screw on coax connections on the PVR350 (type F) is for RF in to the card. One is for radio (not really used yet in myth) and the second one is for the tv rf from your cable, cable box or antenna or other rf sources.

The dongle cable will output video and audio once the system has been properly set up. You can split the output so only tv / tv recordings are output on to the dongle cable with all the menus being displayed on a computter monitor. Normally, most set it up for all to tv or all to a cpu monitor. (yes / no)

An install of R5C7 should bring up the question if you would like to use tv out, if you choose yes, it should switch to that mode so be sure you have a tv monitor available. Also DO NOT select boot splash as it will cause a failure on reboot. Fixable, but a pain that is not needed. You don't really need it anyway when using tv out.

Hope that is what you were looking for..
Mike

Thanks for the replies guys... and thanks Mike for the extra info in your reply. I really appreciate it when people share those little tips that will save me headaches in the future.

So to make sure I'm clear on this... the best set up would be to purchase a reliable tuner card like the Hauppuage 150 or 250 and worry about the video out on a linux compatible video card?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Depends on what you want the system to do.

If you want to use the system as a dedicated home theater PC that only runs MythTV and you are using a non-HDTV, then you should use a pvr-350. It has significantly better composite/s-video output compaired to "regular" video cards that have composite/s-video output. And it is fairly easy to setup in knoppmyth R5C7 (as long as you follow mjl's instructions).

If you want to use the computer to do other stuff besides run MythTV the pvr-350 might not be ideal.

If you have a HDTV you should be able to use a DVI/HDMI/VGA signal to run the TV.

I use a pvr-350 to feed the video signal to my TV and I'm very happy with it. Yet I'm unhappy that there are no over the air HDTV channels where I live.

note: Composite video uses coaxial cables/connectors. Yes RCA plugs/cables are coax. So component video uses three coax cables. F-type connectors are the screw on connectors used for the feed from your cable company. They are also coax. So it is important to make sure people know what you meen when you type "coax" in a post.

Another really informative post, thanks ryan...

The box is going to be for my wife to "tivo" and check her email on, and for me to occassionally play emulated games on with the MythGame module. I do my real work (graphic design and photo editing) on another machine.

So in light of that usage and that it will be hooked up to an older but still quite servicable sony trinitron tv with an fconnector style coax cable and three red/white/yellow composite video inputs... the 350 would be ideal? I'd assume that it either comes with an s-video/composite adapter or I could buy one cheaply.

actually the games probably won't do so well on the pvr350 output,

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Why not?

If I'm going to spend all the time and money to build this thing... I want to be able to play every version of Super Smash Bros. ever released!

The 350 is basically optimized for playing back MPEG2 recordings (since it has an MPEG2 decoder). As a result, getting it to play back things _other_ than MPEG2 properly (like AVIs or Xvid or games) can be much more of an issue. I've read here in the forum where people have gotten it to work (at least as far as AVI playback goes, not sure about games) with the addition of various hacks out there.

So: pros of PVR-350 output are the best possible playback of your video recordings. Cons are that everything else is trickier to get to work properly (or maybe at all).

Pros of a "regular" video-out from a regular video card: everything works. Cons are the playback of your MPEG2 video recordings are not as good as from the 350 (although it's gotten a lot better with bob deinterlacing in playback options).

It's up to you which is more important, basically.

In light of that new info (thanks btw)... I think the best bet would be to go the video out on the video card route.

I'd like to be able to play video other than mpeg2 (like avi, divx, etc.) that I've downloaded. For example the entire season 1-3 of AquaTeenHungerForce that is in .avi format.

So taking into account that I want to play back other formats, I'd like to use the machine for web browsing and game emulators, in addition to regular tivo type functionality... does it make more sense to get a decent vid card to compliment a PVR-250 card?

Is the playback issue on the 350 great enough that its worth saving myself the headache and going the above route?

btw... this forum is so damn helpful. I've been posting in various forums since the original BBS forums of yesteryear and the responses I've gotten here so far are the most succint and to the point I've ever gotten to virtual question asking

looks like you've already made the right decision, but just to clarify with a bit more detail why the pvr350 is not as good as a video card for many things.

The pvr350 didn't use to have xv video acceleration just mpeg2, which made avi etc not work very well. The newer ivtv drivers now to have xv acceleration, which helps the avi's, but it was never really designed as a full blown video card.

Most video cards have hardware dedicated to generic 2d and 3d acceleration. The pvr350 pretty much only has dedicated hardware for mpeg2, so everything else is just hacking the other functionality onto hardware not designed for it.

some of the game emulators use opengl which is definitely not supported by the pvr350, and most of the rest I'm sure use 2d acceleration that the pvr350 does not have, though I am not video driver architect or anything, so that last bit is slightly speculative.

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