TV Tuner advice / experiences

[mrzed]

Yes I've read the many threads available fon the topic, but I'm left with a few questions.

I will be puting together the following system soon:

XP2500+ Mobile Barton - Biostar M7NCG - Custom mATX Case -

Primarily this will be used to watch TV, schedule recordings, rip CD's, listen to music, watch DVD's and schedule recording of FM radio. It is for standard cable with no immediate plans to go HD. I won't be likely to run consoles through the machine.

I am a linux newb, but I like the idea of testing out MythTV. Most likely I will start with windows though, until I get used to the thing. My choices are in canadian dollars:

PVR150 - $100 no FM radio
Sapphire Theatre 550 - $100 includes FM
Visiontex Theatre 550 - $120 includes beyondTV (anyone used this? recommedations?)
PVR350 - I $160 FM radio and Hardware decoder (not sure if this will be any advantage.

So other than Linux compatibility is there any advantage to the PVR cards? Has anyone used a Theatre 550 successfully with MythTV? And finally, what about the idea of using a software only card? I suspect I wil have more than enough CPU for the task, but I'm mostly concerned with quality. Droppping frames would not please me.

 

[mrzed]

Bump with another question:

I just read in a review of a theatre550 based card that it does not support recording of FM radio. This is a potential deal breaker for me. Can anyone confirm if this is true for all cards based on the same chipset? If so, are there any other cards that offer this functionality?

 

[Peter]

You know you don't need a TV card to watch DVD?

Besides, if this is not about HDTV, you'll do fine with something inexpensive like the KWorld 7131 card ($29 on newegg).

There are no "software only" cards. The tuner and the grabbing are always hardware - the only thing that's either hardware or software is the MPEG _en_coding when you're recording. Having that allows you to record to harddisk even with extremely weak processors, as found in those fanless living room PCs. Your XP2500+ is plenty fast enough to do that through the CPU.

 

[mrzed]

Yes I know that output does not require any form of tuner card. I will be doing a lot of recording if I can get it working properly though.

I have seen a lot of people recommend hardware encoders - even in current times. I can't help but wonder why, if all modern CPU's have more than enough power. Most of these people are not using VIA level PC's. I'm certianly willing to save money. I may underclock the 2500+ (but only slightly so this should not be a problem).

Are any of the software-encoding cards / chipsets more supported by common PVR applications? And does the quality match what you get with the hardware encoders? I imagine that video quality would be largely dependant on the tuner used as opposed to the encoding (assuming same compression levels) is this correct?

I will look into the KWorld card (sourcing from Canada) - a quick search turned up only a Kworld TV-PVR 878 for $55. To be honest, there are so many different options in the cheaper tuner cards that it makes it hard to decipher what the better ones are.

I appreciate you taking the time to reply. You seem to go against the grain - with most others always recommending one of the big name hardware encorder, but you also clearly know what you are talking about.

 

[Dainas]

If Lifeview flyvideo supports linux and you can find one get it. I only say this because they have excellent picture quality, have all the hookups(RV, S-video, AV, audio in/out, radio antennal) and radio support and are dirt cheap(sub $60can). All the other cards around its price (i've tried about half a dozen) are missing alot of its features or have cr*p picture. They are just so cheap it dosent hurt to try and if it dosent work out atleast you have a TV tuner with really good quality video-in.

 

[Peter]

The FlyTV Platinum does have Linux support. (I made that ). However, FM radio support for the particular tuner it uses still isn't perfect. TV is fully working though.
Older FlyTV models do have full Linux support as well.

mrzed, whatever you do, stay away from the oooooold Conexant/Brooktree 878, 879 or 848 chips. Their framegrabbing quality is far inferior to the modern chips (Philips 713x series, Conexant 238xx series).

Hardware MPEG2 encoders save CPU power, but they don't leave you with a choice on the resulting quality. "Software" encoding does, and that's where quality factors in. It's up to YOU to choose the data reduction ratio to balance file size against image quality, while an on-card hardware MPEG2 encoder is hardcoded to whatever setpoint its makers deemed optimal.

Microsoft has the encoder chip as a requirement for MCE, exactly because of the typically weak processors in those boxes. In a halfway recent desktop or notebook PC, I wouldn't bother. For example, my low-spec notebook here, Sempron 2600 (socket-754), shared-memory SiS graphics, slow 2.5" harddisk, has no problem recording from its PCMCIA TV card (which is technically PCI) to DVD quality MPEG2 from analog TV feed. Even timeshifting TV, with the CPU encoding and the graphics chip decoding MPEG2, is entirely possible. A desktop machine with faster harddisk and graphics will have an even easier job.

 

[Peter]

This is the LifeView "FlyTV Platinum FM" card, with a different marketing name:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...m-details.asp?EdpNo=1580478&CatId=1427

This too is a LifeView card, the FlyTV Prime aka FlyVideo 3000 (or 2000 if it's not the stereo version), in OEM clothes as "Mercury":

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...-details.asp?EdpNo=674000&Sku=K13-8001

As one can see from the tin box, the latter card has the older tuner technology, which is location specific and limited to one single TV norm. The former has the Philips "Silicon Tuner" which lets you decode any TV standard from anywhere in the world. Also, the newer card is stereo for sure, while the specs for the Mercury don't tell.

 

[mrzed]

OK then upon further search, I have found this Asus TV/FM card with Phillips TV713X chip. Seems cheap enough, it's a brand I recognize, which probably means little, but gives me some sense of security. The price premium over no-name brands is little enough to be insignificant to me.

Can I assume this would have decent support in common PVR apps and Linux? Does anyone know if FM recording in Linux is currently supported for this card? I'm ready to pull the trigger if I can get a good recommendation.

 

[Markbnj]

There are lots of choices. All the hardware is more or less fine. All the software more or less blows.

Think that's about it.

 

[Capt Caveman]

I purchased the Vistiontek Theater 550 for $60 AR from buy.com and very happy with it. Currently, it's $71 USD AR at buy.com http://www.buy.com/prod/VisionTek_Xtasy...pStream_PVR_SW/q/loc/101/10409576.html

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: mrzed
OK then upon further search, I have found this Asus TV/FM card with Phillips TV713X chip. Seems cheap enough, it's a brand I recognize, which probably means little, but gives me some sense of security. The price premium over no-name brands is little enough to be insignificant to me.

Can I assume this would have decent support in common PVR apps and Linux? Does anyone know if FM recording in Linux is currently supported for this card? I'm ready to pull the trigger if I can get a good recommendation.

For Linux support, check www.linuxtv.org , in particular the video4linux mailing list. I recommended the LifeView cards because I know they are well supported, while the pretty recent cards that use the 7131 chips aren't quite there yet.
The ASUS card uses old tuner technology (look, a tin shielding can!), I'd prefer the FlyTV Platinum anytime. But then, not everyone uses more than one TV standard.