I just noticed in another post that the PVR-250 and VIA chipsets don't get along too well...? Could anyone tip us off to any hardware combinations that have problems together? Also, is there a way around the problems w/ the 250 and VIA?

if you have one of the chipsets affected by the dma bug no there is no way around it. Check out hardware that is in tier3 meaning problems.

oops, guess I should have realized that section was there. From what I read, do I understand correctly that the VIA chipsets just seem to cause a problem when trying to record and playback at the same time? If this is the problem, can I assume that a VIA chipset would still be fine to use for a frontend?

EDIT: Could a box using a VIA chipset work fine for a fronted or a backend, as long as it's not used for both?

well from what some on the board say yes, but from my own personal experience with a via kt133 board no it would not work for anything that tried to use the pvr250 basically your milage may vary, but if you have the option avoid via chipsets.