While it's still on topic, a quick run-down of the Hauppage cards for those unfamiliar with them:

PVR-150   :   a basic framegrabber. Requires more CPU cycles to do the MPEG encoding work. Works fine if you have CPU bandwidth to spare.
PVR-250   :   hardware MPEG encoder. Doesn't require much CPU while recording. (However, it takes *more* CPU time to transcode if you don't happen to like their choice of encoding format!)
PVR-350   :   hardware MPEG encoder *and* hardware MPEG decoder. Doesn't require much CPU time to record OR play back. Playback can be through the TV-OUT port on the PVR-350. Linux supports using the PVR-350 as a display device for X, but only as an unaccelerated framebuffer. In other words, it's really good for playing back MPEG video (in the same format as it recorded it in the first place) but really, really, REALLY bad for doing anything else like playing XMAME games or really, anything other than MPEG playback. On the other hand, the TV-out generates "perfect" resolution for your TV set, and you can theoretically run a MythTV box without a VGA card at all...

The key point I wanted to make, is that although conventional wisdom says the PVR-150 requires the most CPU horsepower, that's not always the case. With the PVR-150 you can control what encoding format gets used - and you only have to encode once. With a PVR-250, if Hauppage's MPEG4 flavor isn't to your liking, the CPU has to *decode* and then *re-encode* the video in realtime - actually taking more CPU time than if you didn't have the hardware acceleration in the first place.

The other point is that with the PVR-350, you'll get (reportedly) fantastic output quality but that for doing anything OTHER than watching MPEG4 playback, the performance will actually suck - and take lots of CPU time.

-Adam Thompson

Sean A. Walberg wrote:

I was at Staples in Portage Place yesterday, they have the 250 for the 
same deal.

People looking for the 350 -- it came down in price on Sep 1.  We ordered 
a few direct from Hauppauge, it ended up being $215 each after shipping 
and taxes.   

http://www.1click2computers.com/searches/results.asp?product_search=pvr-350&x=0&y=0

has it for $180.60 Canadian.

Sean

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005, Theodore Baschak wrote:

If you're interesting in setting up mythtv, the pvr 150 is on sale for $99
at futureshop this week ($50 instant savings, *NOT* mail in rebate for
once)

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10057681&catid=10524&logon=&langid=EN

I've got this card working with mythtv on fedora core 4, following this
guide.

http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php

Theodore Baschak


_______________________________________________
Roundtable mailing list
Roundtable@muug.mb.ca
http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable