hello,

I'm just getting into this mythtv thing and have been doing some reading about using the PVR350 as the output device. I've read some conflicting opinions on the use and stability of the PVR350 when used as the output device on a mythtv box. Some of the things I've read may be old and fixed, so I just wanted to get some other opinions..

Basically -- I would like to use KnoppMyth with a PVR350 and have it support the following.

I would like to record and playback live TV. This should be no problem with the PVR350, almost every comment says the output of the PVR350 for this purpose is fine.

I would like to be able to rip DVDs to the internal drive and watch them. I'm looking for convience and decent quality. Apparently with the PVR350, you need to use some patched application (mplayer) which can output to the framebuffer of the PVR350. Some have said that this takes alot of CPU since it is doing all the decoding. This shouldn't be a problem since the machine I am planning to use is a P4 2.8Ghz.

I'd also like to be able to listen to music files on the device. Any way to get the sound out the PVR350?

So, I guess my questions are:

How well does the PVR350 as an framebuffer output device for X? I've heard that there are some stability issues.

Can you see all the mythtv overlay screens?

Is there an issue with viewing live TV after viewing the guide? Some post mentioned that if you didn't change the channel the switch back from framebuffer to PVR350 output. (turning off alpha or something.. )

Can you use mplayer (or xine) to watch DVDs which were previously ripped using the mythtv interface?

Can you encode a DVD to mpeg2 and play it via the PVR-350 just like watching a recorded show?

How does the audio work when playing a DVD which is routed through the PVR-350 framebuffer (basically displayed in X)..

Thanks!

-James

well I haven't used a pvr350, but have one comment. dvd's are recorded in mpeg2 so you don't have to convert them. also if you are ripping a dvd you will probably have to do a perfect rip to leave it in mpeg2 so you can use the pvr's hardware acceleration. I know you think that a pIV 2.8 is more than enough, but the stark fact of the matter is that when you don't even have xv acceleration a 3.0G doesn't even play smoothly from what I've heard.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

So, basically the better plan might be a PVR250 and then using a video card with TV output.. But then I would need a sound card too..

-jr

you would need a soundcard with the pvr350 also unless you don't want to use anything other than the two things you just mentioned, and I'm not entirely sure you'll be able to get dvd's riped or on disk to use the pvr350 sound output.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

So, I would need a soundcard to watch DVDs? If the DVD was ripped to a MPEG2 stream (with audio) couldn't this be played back via the PVR350? I assume that to listen to mp3s, I would need a soundcard. You can't use the PVR350 output as a soundcard.

So, from what I am reading the best plan would be to get a simple tuner card, a decent video card with TV out, and then a sound card.. The tuner card would go into the line-in on the soundcard.This would provide the most mythTv functionality.

-jr

Uhm, no. You're over simplifying and over generalizing. The PVRs are recommended for a variety of reasons.

The 250 because it eases set up very considerably and offloads the CPU by doing it's own encoding as well as providing very high quality recordings which can be easily archived to DVD if you're inclined. No hassles with sound sync, no external loopback jumper cables, no adding a sound card per TV tuner, ...

The 350 gains you "best of breeed" TV output (for S-Video SDTV) which maximizes the viewing quality for MPEG-2 playback. If you look around you'll find lots of complaints about the TV-Output quality from a standard video card related to deinterlacing, over saturation, Gamma issues, ... getting TV-out working on an Nvidia card isn't all that hard, getting it to look good is the REAL challenge.

I'm not sure if mplayer will put audio out the pvr350 or not with mpeg2 streams. I do know that mythmusic will not, and that mplayer will not using anything other than mpeg2 streams.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Sorry.. Just trying to wrap my head around this project and figure out what to order. Some of the stuff I had read was from the mailing list archives, so many of the problems I read about are likely to already be fixed.



So, using a box with *only* the PVR-350 (using the ivtv driver, so that the 350 can display the output of X), what features of mythtv will I be missing out on?