I've been a happy Myth user for almost a year now so naturally I'm wanting to upgrade my hardware. Even though my my present TV (32" Sony Trinitron) isn't HD I would like to add HD to my box. My present hardware is as follows: (yes, I know it's very week for HD)

AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (unlocked) running at 2 GHz [200x10] 3000+ speeds
(rock stable)
ASUS Nforce2 motherboard
512 MB PC3200 Corsair RAM
PVR-500
GeForce 5200 video (using S-video out)
250 GB Wester Digital HDD
SB Audidy 1 sound (SPDIF)

The long term plan is to build a Dragonish system but for now I just want to get a good HD card to see what content is available in my area (Fort Wayne, IN) both OTA and through Comcast (I only have limited basic with my Cable Modem). I realize that my XP 2100 even running at 2 Ghz won't have the horsepower to seamlessly decode HD without XvMC but it should be "good enough" for testing purposes until I can upgrade my MB/Processor.

I'm heavily leaning tword the Airstar HD5000 (used in the Dragon) but the pcHDTV HD5500 also looks to be a very capable card at just a few dollars more. While these cards aren't "expensive" they aren't exactly cheap either. Just to muddy the water it appears that some of the TwinHan and Dvico Fusion cards can be had for nearly half the price of the HD5000 and HD5500. I guess my general question boils down to HD5500 vs. HD5000 but if a cheaper card (TwinHan or Fusion) will work without issue then I don't want to overspend.

Questions:

1) I've read that the HD5000 and the HD5500 both use a 5th generation LG tuner. What is the difference between these two cards besides $10? (these cards don't appear to be included in the Wiki's comparison charts)

2) PCI slots are at a premium on new PCI-e motherboards. I would eventualy like to drop my PVR-500. Can either of these cards tune analog signals? If not are there any HD cards that can? How does the analog compare to that of a PVR150/500?

3) I live literally in the shadow of the TV towers in my area (2 mi. or less) and therefore plan on using a basic indoor antennea. I expect to have a strong signal but are there any cards I should stear clear of?

4) I'm pretty "Linux literate" so Tier 2 doesn't scare me but I'm more than happy to spend a few dollars more to save headaches. Are any card(s) prefered from an ease of use standpoint?

Thanks in advance!

Martian

If you really don't want to overspend and are that close to the broadcast towers, I'd reccommend getting a 1st gen Air2PC card off eBay. I bought 3 of them from this one seller and he ships fast and cheap. I paid less than $30 each for all 3 of mine (shipping included). The price is/was right for me! The cards perform very well for me, but beware in R5C7, they take a few minutes (~4-5) to initialize after the backend starts. In R5D1+ they're much quicker at getting up to speed. I believe it was a MythTV fix that corrected the problem. (R5D1 uses a newer version of MythTV then R5C7) Anyway, I've had a good shopping experience with this guy, but of course, your mileage may vary...

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrp ... FSQ3aMESOI

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That price is very tempting however I seem to recall reading that those cards don't do QAM. Can anyone confirm?

While I don't necessarily *need* QAM I do have Comcast cable (limited basic) and would like to see if I can pull anything digital off of them. I doubt they go to the trouble to filter out the unencrypted digital feeds, the real question is what resolution they are running (not that it really matters on my TV) and if they have any additional unencryted channels that I can't get over the air.

Martian

You are correct, it does not do QAM, but if you just want to do some OTA testing, it's hard to ignore the price.

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Here is the HD tunner I'm considering
http://www.silicondust.com/zxc/content/view/5/26/

HDHomerun
Supports QAM
price $169.99

It cost a little more but it has two tunners and doesn't require a PCI slot. Like you said new boards don't have many.

Also I figure I can put this in the attic next to the antinia and just connect it into the network which is easier for me that running RG6 through the house.

[quote="datobin1"]
Also I figure I can put this in the attic next to the antinia and just connect it into the network which is easier for me that running RG6 through the house.[/quote]
The other advantage is that it cuts down on the signal loss due to the cable length. If I had one of these, I wouldn't need a pre-amp.
Someone else mentioned the inability to use the IR Remote when it's in the attic, but you don't need that anyway. Myth will control it over the network.
Depending on your attic access, you may want to consider running a power circut with a switch so that you can power cycle without crawling through the attic. Or run a cheap extension cord so that you can plug/unplug downstairs, if you're not into doing your own wiring.
I've spent wayyyyy too much time in my attic.

Is it reviewed anywhere? Is there a client you run on the linux machine? I'm not quite sure how I would get the video onto the server.

That lan-connected HDTV box is mighty interesting.

I wonder, tho... HDTV is about a 20M bps stream, and that box has two independent captures. That puts its LAN traffic at around 40M bps sustained. That's kind of high for a 100M connection. The packetizing of the HD stream will have some overhead, so its impact will be somewhat greater than 20M bps. And the efficiency of the network isn't anywhere close to 100%.

The only reason I'm concerned is because I would like four tuners! I just hate to miss programs because they're on at the same time. I suppose I could run independent 100M subnets to two boxes and run them into a gig switch.

I wonder if anyone has tried this box on Myth yet?

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I'd be concerned about summer heat, even a well ventilated attic can get really hot. In my place the 2nd floor can go 10-15F above ambient sometimes, and the attic is worse than that. You'd better have a really efficient coling system in a machine if you want it to survive that...

About the HDHomeRun, it's been supported in svn for quite a while, mythtv support seems to have been the developer's main priority. It won't work in standard Knoppmyth yet, because support for it entered with Mythtv 0.20. QAM support has just been added in svn but requires a firmware upgrade.

There's a lot of info about it on the mythtv-users mailing list

[quote="Liv2Cod"]That lan-connected HDTV box is mighty interesting.

I wonder, tho... HDTV is about a 20M bps stream, and that box has two independent captures. That puts its LAN traffic at around 40M bps sustained. That's kind of high for a 100M connection. The packetizing of the HD stream will have some overhead, so its impact will be somewhat greater than 20M bps. And the efficiency of the network isn't anywhere close to 100%.

The only reason I'm concerned is because I would like four tuners! I just hate to miss programs because they're on at the same time. I suppose I could run independent 100M subnets to two boxes and run them into a gig switch.

I wonder if anyone has tried this box on Myth yet?[/quote]


As long as you have a gigabit switch and a Gig nic in your myth server you will be fine with four tuners.

Each box will have a 100 Mbit connection to the switch which will be enough for that device. The switch will prevent traffic from one tunner box making it to the other ( unless it is a broadcast, the steam wouldn't be) and the server will have a gig connection so all should be good.

[quote="tjc"]I'd be concerned about summer heat, even a well ventilated attic can get really hot. In my place the 2nd floor can go 10-15F above ambient sometimes, and the attic is worse than that. You'd better have a really efficient coling system in a machine if you want it to survive that...[/quote]

I would only put the HDHomerun in the attic and keep the server downstairs but, it may even be a little too hot up thee for the HDHomeRun. I haven't found a spec yet for it's Operating tempatures.


worse-case, I could put it a closset upstairs so it would keep the cable run short and when I think about it; If it is too hot in the attic for the device to run, I don't want to have to go up there in fix in in the heat.

Wow that tuner looks great. Has anybody done a head-to-head comparison aginst PCI based HDTV tuners?

I own the Tivo CacheCard with Network port for my Series 1 Tivo. I've been considering the hdhomerun but was worried about the heat in the attic.

5500 from pchdtv seems to have lots of issues from their forum including pissed off buyers that aren't happy about the company response

Silicon Dust, aka jafa, is very repsonsive to emails/posts in the forum

I have an HDHomerun. I have it working on a small number of QAM channels with the upgraded firmware and MythTV 0.20+fixes SVN, plus other patches. Which I understand are now in SVN.

HDHomerun with MythTV is not quite yet ready for daily use in my opinion. Give it a few weeks. There are some issues yet to work out with both HDHomerun and MythTV 0.20, but it appears HDHomerun will soon be the best way to do OTA/QAM/VSB HDTV on MythTV. The fundamentals are solid.

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