A few questions, please:

1 - I'm good on processor (AMD/64) harddrive space (200GB) and memory (1GB). I have a video card that has both VGA and DVI outputs. Is all I need is a capture card, like the Hauppauge PVR150/250/350?

2 - I'm guessing that as long as I can get the video from my video card to my TV, then all is well, right?

3 - Is there a reason to go with one of the Hauppauge cards over any other? Also, which model should I use? And why?

4 - I want to use the other "plugins" like Mythweather, MythMusic, etc. What will I have to do to get those to work? Are they included in KnoppMyth?

I'm sure I have a bunch more, but these will get me started. I saw the post for the "Noobs" and that was very good. I'll use that as well.

Thanks in advance for any help. I appreciate it!
Alvin

1) That is a hard one to answer because there are a few unanswered variables. HD or SD, how many tuners, what type of sound card do you have and how do you want to deliver the sound (plain R/L stereo or 5.1 surround through a fiberoptic digital connection, etc).

If you are doing HD, the 200gb drive will fill up pretty quick. Memory and CPU should be good for either.

2) What kind of TV. What connections do you have, and how do you plan to connect them.

3) Do a search, there are several posts that detail the differences. In short, 150 is for a single tuner, 350 is a single tuner with TV OUT as well, and the 500 is basically 2x150 on a single card.

If you are doing HD content, then you need an HD tuner. I use an HD5000, although the HD3000 are popular.

4) Works out of the box.

Thanks for the reply.

My plan is to run the video and audio through my A/V receiver. From there I'll get video to my TV and audio through my 5.1 surround sound. Also, I have a Via Technologies VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller. Will this work for sending audio to my receiver for 5.1 audio?

I'm on DISH network, so I just need one tuner. I don't want to have two receivers for one location. I have the DISH DVR at one location, so I can essentially record two channels at the same time.

I know I have issues to deal with like remote control, etc. But I don't know what questions to ask yet until I get MythTV setup.

Thanks again!

There is a page on the wiki that surveys the differences. http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=TVCard

What it doesn't mention is that the recordings from the 250 and 350 seem to be a bit better than the ones from the 150 and 500 for some reason. This could be because of the hardware or just a driver/tweaking issue, but a number of folks have noted it.

Hi,

Another two cents, I have a Dell 400 mhz 256 meg mem with pvr-350 works good, the on board encoder & decoder allow this low end machine. Also a HP 600 mhz 256 meg mem works good with pvr-150 as the cpu is just enough for the decode when using a nvidia video. Suggest you use the higher horse power for HD later down the road

I also like the 350 quality better.

Mike

One more thing that didn't get addressed: how can I have my audio output sent to my 5.1 surround receiver and get the surround sound? Will I (should I) get another sound card? I have the VIA that I mentioned in an earlier post. Is there another that works "out of the box" with MythTV?

Thanks!

If you actually have an optical audio out of some sort on your board, then I believe it would work, because there's options for these chipsets in alsamixer to enable the IEC958 output. If its the old "use the microphone and line ports as outputs," I haven't gotten that to work in any way with any VT823x yet, but you might have more luck with your chipset. I can say that you'll get regular stereo sound at the very least with this out of the box.

OK. Thanks to everyone for their help. Here goes!