Carl L. Gilbert wrote:
I am trying to decide between the Hauppauge HVR-1600 or the PVR-150.
I plan to use this card in a server in the basement that I will never
watch video on. Its only a server to decode the TV signals and provide
the DVD feeds, etc. My OS will be the latest Mandriva and I am running a
XP3200+ on what I think is an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe with nforce2 with an AGP
RIVA128 video card. (Don't hate!)
I see the HVR-1600 is not 100% supported so it concerns me as I am an
ivtv/MythTV noob and don't want to bite off too much new stuff at once.
Haven't
even installed it yet. Plus, do I really need clear QAM? is that any
better than the same channels on analog cable?
Digital video comes across your Cable company's cable via QAM. They have
a choice of sending either encrypted QAM-64 or QAM-256 (I believe QAM-256
is more prevalent in the US), or clear QAM. Tuner cards currently can
process clear QAM, because there aren't any cards that are able to handle
the different encryption routines used by the Cable monopolies. There
are some external tuners that can use a Cable card, which one then would
need to hook up to a capture card via analog, or s-Video, etc. Then you
could capture Digital via analog.
I believe that QAM captured shows will be clearer in the case where you
have fuzzy pictures from your cablevision. Normally, that's probably not
the case, so you probably won't notice much different.
One other thing to be aware of. When you capture from mythtv with a
PVR-150/250/350/500, you will be capturing MPEG-2 PS (Program Stream)
video, ready for playing with. When you capture QAM, you will be
capturing MPEG-2 TS (Transport Stream) video, which may require a
bit more effort to de-multiplex and do something with. Also, you will
get AC-3 audio from QAM, and mp2 audio from PVR-xxx. This could
be an issue, depending upon what kind of Frontend you are using.
The PVR-150 looks like the choice. I don't need a remote because this is
only a server. But it looks like I have to watch out because an HVR-1600
may come in the PVR-150 box?
Makes me wonder if I should just order the PVR-150 and if I am lucky
enough to get an HVR-1600 then just call it a bonus and deal with it!?
Thanks for your tips or pointers to reading material which I know
newsgroup like to point you too :)
dnoyeB
P.S. Remember, I don't really need decoding right? or will this help when
I serve the signal?
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