The PVR-150 uses a different chipset than the PVR-250/350. The PVR-500 is essentially two PVR-150's on a single card.
The maturity of the ivtv driver is not as great for the 150. I routinely use the PVR-250 or PVR-250 MCE with the EPIA motherboard. I haven't used the PVR-350 because the mpeg acceleration on the EPIA and its tv-out work fine. I see about 40% cpu utilization on an M10000 Nehemiah while watching live TV. I've not been able to get a PVR-150/500 working on an EPIA system. I know some people have had success with it under PAL but not under NTSC. YMMV. On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 09:41:45 -0500, Scot L. Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, 2005-03-29 at 06:57, Ow Mun Heng wrote: > > On Sun, 2005-03-20 at 15:52 -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: > > > > > > > > To bottom-line this thread: An "1GHz EPIA-M with a PVR-150" > > > should easily be able to watch live TV because... > > > > > > - the PVR-150 is H/W encoding to MPEG-2 > > > - a MythTV process is writing that encoded stream to disk > > > - another process is pushing the encodes stream from disk to the > > > Unichrome MPEG-2 decoder. > > > - the Unichrome driver is pumping the decoded data to the video > > > card. > > > > I just got to ask.. because I'm confused with all the different PVR-XXX > > versions out there. > > > > PVR-150 = PVR-250 = Same Price - What gives?? > > > > But having said that, I guess my main question is, which of the PVR > > cards can I use for the most fundamental of uses. > > > > 1. Watch Live TV > > 2. Record Live TV (Digital satellite Broadcast) > > 3. Have a Remote to play with. > > > > What's the difference that you ppl are seeing? > > Which Hauppauge card you get depends a little on what you want to do > with the Mythtv system. > > My first mythtv box has a PVR-350 and a PVR-250MCE. I am using the > PVR-350 output to the TV which works great for what I am using it for. > > The PVR-250 is essentially a PVR-350 but does not have the TV output or > the remote control input. I use it as just another encoder card for > recording shows. > > The PVR-350 comes with a remote control and provides Svideo and > composite outputs. The caveat is that the output is good for things you > record (the PVR-350 has a hardware decoder for mpeg2) but apparently > getting a DVD to play using the PVR-350 output is not possible. > > If you want the mythtv box to be able to play DVDs apparently you are > better off using a standard video card output to the TV. This means you > will need more CPU. And if you go that route the PVR-350 does not make > as much sense. > > I am not familiar with the PVR-150. However the PVR-500 is interesting > as it has two tuners on the one card. I have found that having at least > two tuners is required, otherwise there are many conflicts in > scheduling. Two tuners eliminate most of the conflicts. Three tuners > would be optimum, there should be very few conflicts if any with three > tuners. > > The TV output from the PVR-350 replicates the input signal so well that > I doubt that I could tell the difference between a live broadcast from > the cable company and what is being played back from the mythtv box. > > In the next few months I plan on building a cheaper cooler quieter > frontend box and may opt for using a video card output so I can get the > DVD playback working. I also like the live tv listings better over the > video card. With the PVR-350 the tv listings overlay the entire > picture. When I was testing it seems that the output to the monitor put > the current channel in a small box in the upper right corner and > provided the listings below that. Much easier to view. So if you are > not going to use the PVR-350 output you may be better off getting a > PVR-250 and some other remote control setup. > > Not sure if there is much documentation describing these trade offs or > not. I found out during the build of my first box. > > -- > Scot L. Harris > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Let us live!!! > Let us love!!! > Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! > > You first. > > > _______________________________________________ > mythtv-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users > > > -- Tim www.magicitx.com _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
