Mailing List Archive: MythTV: Users

HD Card Suggestions

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petedaly at gmail

May 8, 2008, 1:45 PM

Post #1 of 4 (440 views)
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HD Card Suggestions

I'm getting ready to build a new MythTV system and write an article
about the process and hardware for MythPVR.com.

Currently, I don't have any TV's that can display HD. My current
system uses a PVR-350 hooked up to a digital converter box and IR
blaster. I'm very happy with end result.

For the new system, I'd like to have a "native" HD card, but I want to
be able to playback on my non-HD sets without transcoding after
capture. Is there a HD card that is supported by MythTV that can do
real-time downscaling to SD resolution, similar to my digital
converter box?

On a (very low) budget, are there any things in-particular people
would like to see covered, either hardware, process, software, or
content wise? I've already got a rough idea in mind for my plans, but
I'd love some input on what others want to see.

End result on MythPVR.com will be somewhat similar to the following,
which is the box I plan to replace:
http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/hardware/low-power-mythtv-server.html

Thanks for any input, I'd hate to do the external digital converted
option if something else makes more sense.

-Pete
MythPVR.com
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sastie at gmail

May 8, 2008, 1:56 PM

Post #2 of 4 (424 views)
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Re: HD Card Suggestions [In reply to]

If you are not hdd space constrained, and depending on your CPU, it
shouldn't matter if the recording is downscaled to SD. I have a frontend
connected to a non HD TV playing recordings from a HD Homerun.
It looks really good and do not have any issues... (keep in mind that HD
Homerun only tunes OTA HD and Clear QAM).

On 5/8/08, Peter A. Daly <petedaly[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm getting ready to build a new MythTV system and write an article
> about the process and hardware for MythPVR.com.
>
> Currently, I don't have any TV's that can display HD. My current
> system uses a PVR-350 hooked up to a digital converter box and IR
> blaster. I'm very happy with end result.
>
> For the new system, I'd like to have a "native" HD card, but I want to
> be able to playback on my non-HD sets without transcoding after
> capture. Is there a HD card that is supported by MythTV that can do
> real-time downscaling to SD resolution, similar to my digital
> converter box?
>
> On a (very low) budget, are there any things in-particular people
> would like to see covered, either hardware, process, software, or
> content wise? I've already got a rough idea in mind for my plans, but
> I'd love some input on what others want to see.
>
> End result on MythPVR.com will be somewhat similar to the following,
> which is the box I plan to replace:
> http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/hardware/low-power-mythtv-server.html
>
> Thanks for any input, I'd hate to do the external digital converted
> option if something else makes more sense.
>
> -Pete
> MythPVR.com
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users[at]mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

kkuphal at gmail

May 8, 2008, 2:24 PM

Post #3 of 4 (425 views)
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Re: HD Card Suggestions [In reply to]

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Peter A. Daly <petedaly[at]gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm getting ready to build a new MythTV system and write an article
> about the process and hardware for MythPVR.com.
>
> Currently, I don't have any TV's that can display HD. My current
> system uses a PVR-350 hooked up to a digital converter box and IR
> blaster. I'm very happy with end result.
>
> For the new system, I'd like to have a "native" HD card, but I want to
> be able to playback on my non-HD sets without transcoding after
> capture. Is there a HD card that is supported by MythTV that can do
> real-time downscaling to SD resolution, similar to my digital
> converter box?

I do this. I have an old-school 40" Sony rear-projection TV. My backend
uses a combination of PVR-500 tuners and AverMedia A180 HD tuners. I
display all the content at 1024x768 to my TV through a VGA to NTSC converter
(because that's what the TV likes). Myth handles all the resolution and
downscaling perfectly. The only difference is that the HD content is
letterboxed like a DVD on the TV.

I strongly recommend that A180 for an internal PCI HD tuner. It works out
of the box with the DVB drivers and was simple to set up and (as I have
found) has no issues with multple cards or coexisting with SD tuners. It
was a simple and straightforward upgrade to add a single A180 tuner to my
system with no other changes. The biggest challenge is making sure your
frontend can handle decoding the HD (P4 3.2Ghz+) or using an XvMC capable
video card (Nvidia FX5200 AGP) to offload the processing.

Kevin

mistyp at thekorn

May 9, 2008, 12:09 PM

Post #4 of 4 (379 views)
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Re: HD Card Suggestions [In reply to]

Kevin Kuphal wrote:
>> I strongly recommend that A180 for an internal PCI HD tuner. It
>> works out of the box with the DVB drivers and was simple to set up
>> and (as I have found) has no issues with multple cards or coexisting
>> with SD tuners. It was a simple and straightforward upgrade to add
>> a single A180 tuner to my system with no other changes. The biggest
>> challenge is making sure your frontend can handle decoding the HD
>> (P4 3.2Ghz+) or using an XvMC capable video card (Nvidia FX5200 AGP)
>> to offload the processing.

For PCIE-1X data points, the Hauppauge HVR-1800 and HVR-1250 are playing
very nicely together in my ATSC HD BE/FE. They're "plug in & just work"
devices (under ubuntu 8.04, anyway).

The 1250 has a funny dmesg message, probably a result of being "too new":
[ 40.593065] tveeprom 3-0050: Encountered bad packet header [ff]. Corrupt
or not a Hauppauge eeprom.

Regardless, it works just fine. :)

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