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Headrush
Watchman
Joined: 06 Nov 2003
Posts: 5597
Location: Bizarro World
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 Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 4:24 am Post subject: Questions/Suggestions on PVR setup. (Mythtv on Via C3) |
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I recently purchase hardware to make a PVR.
The motherboard/CPU is an ITX Via C3 and the TV card is a Hauppauge 350. The only thing that will run on this system is Mythtv. (Not even other parts of mythtv like games, so 3d support isn't really important.)
Now both the video output from the motherboard and and tv card have mpeg2 decoder support.
I have 2 questions:- Which output method should I use: TV card or Unichrome output from provided with the motherboard.
(What are the advantages/disadvantages of each?)
- Would the best option be to install a minimalist X server like evilWM, or go with Mythtv on the framebuffer.
(Looks like DirectFB supports the Unichrome driver? (cle266) )
Anyone's with practical experiences they can relate also appreciated |
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HackingM2
Apprentice
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 245
Location: Cambridge, England
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| Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 10:14 pm Post subject: Re: Questions/Suggestions on PVR setup. (Mythtv on Via C3) |
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| Headrush wrote: | | Which output method should I use: TV card or Unichrome output from provided with the motherboard. |
Personally I would use the output from the motherboard. According to the support forums for MythTV they are dropping support for output on the Hauppauge 350. |
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dmartinsca
Guru
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Posts: 303
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 11:06 pm Post subject: Re: Questions/Suggestions on PVR setup. (Mythtv on Via C3) |
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| HackingM2 wrote: | | Headrush wrote: | | Which output method should I use: TV card or Unichrome output from provided with the motherboard. |
Personally I would use the output from the motherboard. According to the support forums for MythTV they are dropping support for output on the Hauppauge 350. |
wtf, the output is why i bought the 350 over the 250 |
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HackingM2
Apprentice
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 245
Location: Cambridge, England
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| Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 11:15 pm Post subject: Re: Questions/Suggestions on PVR setup. (Mythtv on Via C3) |
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| dmartinsca wrote: | | wtf, the output is why i bought the 350 over the 250 |
Same here.
To be fair to the devs of MythTv though none of them own one and they get precious little help from Hauppauge. There are several hundred lines of code in MythTV just to work with that output. It all takes time to maintain and extend.
On the plus side I don't think it'll be going away any time soon and the development of a half-way decent framebuffer driver which supports the other output method (XV?) is in the works too.
If you don't care about having to reconfigure when 0.22 or so gets released then I'd use the output of the 350 as it looks great - I do. |
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Headrush
Watchman
Joined: 06 Nov 2003
Posts: 5597
Location: Bizarro World
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| Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 12:25 am Post subject: Re: Questions/Suggestions on PVR setup. (Mythtv on Via C3) |
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| HackingM2 wrote: | | If you don't care about having to reconfigure when 0.22 or so gets released then I'd use the output of the 350 as it looks great - I do. |
Thanks.
I heard the output from the 350 was excellent. Once its running I don't anticipate maintaining it much anyways. (Minor bug fixes only - no major upgrades, I only care about TV recording.)
Edit: Of course I might not have any choice since the ivtv site never seems up and I can't find a 0.6.x version anywhere. (Required for 2.6.16) |
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M@rio
n00b
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 27
Location: Graz
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| Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 7:40 am Post subject: Re: Questions/Suggestions on PVR setup. (Mythtv on Via C3) |
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| HackingM2 wrote: | | On the plus side I don't think it'll be going away any time soon [...] |
It's already broken with 0.19. See: http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/745
And it doesn't look like they're going to fix it for 0.20 . |
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simeli
Apprentice
Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 193
Location: Switzerland, Zurich
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| Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 9:42 am Post subject: |
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The hardware decoder on the 350 looks *much* better than the wacky unichrome graphics. The problem though is, that it only decodes mpeg2 streams. So if you transcode your recordings to mpeg4 to save space, your CPU will have to do the work, which may result in dropped frames. I am not quite sure if your unichrome supports mpeg4 and then again it depends on the codec and all that. If I were you, I'd stick with the 0.18 release of mythtv. There is lots of experience on the net and 0.19 still seems to not always work right. Once you have a bunch of things and a working setup it's a pain loosing it just because you upgraded for a minor feature.
_________________
Pentium M 740 on MSI 915GM SPEEDSTER-FA4, 2x512MB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 667 Memory, Zalman CNPS7000B AlCu, Samsung SpinPoint P120 250GB SATAII, Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500, Enermaxx Liberty 400, Antec P180
Husaberg FS650e Force Edition [http://www.husaberg.se] |
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Headrush
Watchman
Joined: 06 Nov 2003
Posts: 5597
Location: Bizarro World
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| Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 10:35 am Post subject: Re: Questions/Suggestions on PVR setup. (Mythtv on Via C3) |
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| M@rio wrote: | | HackingM2 wrote: | | On the plus side I don't think it'll be going away any time soon [...] |
It's already broken with 0.19. See: http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/745
And it doesn't look like they're going to fix it for 0.20 . |
I'm using version 19 right now with the PVR 350 output and it works fine.
Edit: Looked at your bug link a little closer and you seem to be talking about the FF problem, not PVR350 output in general.
Its still works, but if a maintainer doesn't step up, support for it may be removed. |
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