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What is Your Hardware Preference?
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11699		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  webs [ Mon Sep 18, 2006 2:44 pm ]
Post subject:  What is Your Hardware Preference?
So I am extremely close to building a PVR. I have the system ready to go, I am just waiting for the extra funds to purchase the tuner cards. I definitely want at least 2 tuner cards, but I have some questions still. After traversing the forums for a few hours the only question I have is, what set-up do people recommend?

Do you recommend high end capture cards or low end capture cards. The way I see it, I can spend $10 a card on Ebay and get 4 cards for cheaper than I can get two from Newegg. So should I spend more money on the nicer card, like a Hauppage? Has anyone noticed a difference in quality? And is the difference worth it?

And lastly... Please post your setup and thoughts. I am interested in hearing what you all think.

Thanks!
Author:  spalVl [ Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:13 pm ]
Post subject: 
Played with few diffrent tuners in diffrent systems.

System 1 PIII 500, 256RAM 80GB, PVR-150 retail
System 2 PIII 933 512RAM 80GB, PVR-150 retail
System 3 AMD 1700 512RAM 80GB, Leadtek Winfast 2000 XP

The PVR-150 produces better quality recording, the recordings sizes are about 1/2 the size of the Leadtek (software based encoding) at around 2GB/hr compared to 4GB/hr.

Both controls are well supported. A lot of your cheaper cards use software encoding and can be hit/miss supported. The above is just the SD realm, there are choices too for HD recording if you want to go that avenue. I looked a good amount for tuner "deals" on ebay the problem is a lot of the cards you have no idea what chipset they use and if they are supported. I setup searches for a known supported software card in Leadtek, but never seen a deal worth the few $$ diffrence that wouldn't warrant just getting another PVR-150.
Author:  turpie [ Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:27 pm ]
Post subject: 
Your profile doesn't say which country you are in. If you are in a DVB country you can get digital tuners cheaper than decent analog tuners, with much better picture quality.
On the analog side my PVR-150 is much better quality than my Flyvideo3000, which was better than the Winfast 2000XP that I gave up on.


Is US digital tv (ATSC) only for HDTV? DVB in Australia is both SD and HD.
Author:  webs [ Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
Yea I kinda figured that Hauppage had the best quality. From what I had seen it appears that everyone seems to use them. So I guess I could try to find the cheapest Hauppage card and get a couple of em.
Author:  baishen78 [ Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:59 am ]
Post subject: 
webs wrote:
Yea I kinda figured that Hauppage had the best quality. From what I had seen it appears that everyone seems to use them. So I guess I could try to find the cheapest Hauppage card and get a couple of em.


Get a Hauppage PVR-500. IIRC, it's cheaper than two PVR-150's an' provides two tuners on one card.
Author:  webs [ Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:06 am ]
Post subject: 
So if I get one card can I later add another, after I have already set up the box?
Author:  turpie [ Tue Sep 19, 2006 5:08 pm ]
Post subject: 
webs wrote:
So if I get one card can I later add another, after I have already set up the box?

Yes. You can keep adding cards until you run out of slots.
After adding a new card you will have to go back into mythtv-setup to add the new card, and match its inputs to the xmltv video-sources.
Author:  Schrag [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:15 pm ]
Post subject:  How about this setup?
I too am just about to order the tuners for my MythTV box, and I wanted some feedback on what I think I've narrowed it down to. I was going to get 2 cards, both the PVR-150, but one with a remote. The remote version is over 30 bucks more. Is it worth it to do that? Or is there a cheaper option for the remote so I can just get the 2 identical tuners?

Here are the cards I was going to order:
The non-remote PVR-150:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815116633

The remote version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815116625

I really look forward to having a high quality MythTV box with a remote that uses as little CPU as possible to keep heat lower (I'm paranoid). Thanks for your input.
Author:  Schrag [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:24 pm ]
Post subject: 
I guess I should tell why I chose those cards. Obviously I want a remote, but also, from what I've gathered, both of those cards have hardware mpeg2 encoding, which means lower CPU utilization while recording shows or watching live TV. The other thing that I think I've gathered is that they don't require an audio cable to a sound card, which means I can just use one sound card in the box.

Am I correct on all those points? If so, I think this will easily be worth the extra money for higher quality cards. If I'm not correct, I'd like to know before I start ordering!!! Thanks again for any input.
Author:  tjc [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:52 pm ]
Post subject: 
The cost difference is basically the remote. If you look at the PVR150 MCE _kits_ which include a remote they're about the same as the non-MCE cards which come with a remote.
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