[NCLUG] MythTV Questions

[DJ Eshelman]

I think initially my first project will be for capturing and processing 
some old videos, so that's good to know the Plextor will work well for 
both functions.

always good to get some actual user experience before committing, even 
if it does only set me back $50...

thanks!

-DJ

Brian Wood wrote:
> DJ Eshelman wrote:
>> You know, I guess this thread is a good as any to ask this question, 
>> but does anyone have any ideas about best price/performance video 
>> capture cards?  Especially ones with component and Svideo INPUTS 
>> (lots have outs, but I don't know what to do for ins).
>
> Actually few capture cards have video out of any sort. The PVR-350 
> does, but I'm not aware of others.
>
> Component inputs are also rare, though the promised Hauppauge device, 
> due out next month, will have them.
>
> Most capture devices have composite and S-Video inputs.
>
>> Basically I've got a lot of VHS tapes that I'd really like to convert 
>> to MPEG4 or H.264 files; has anyone had success/failures?  There's 
>> obviously this list:  
>> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Video_capture_cards  
>> but I'm curious about local experience...  Obviously there's the 
>> option of the Hauppauge PVR-150 at about $60 for SD captures and the 
>> PVR-150MCE-LP is nice for low profile.  I was intrigued by the 
>> Plextor ConvertX (which has hardware encoders, but I wonder how 
>> flexible/compatible that would be)
>
> Well I happen to own all of those.
>
> The PVRs are pretty much the gold standard for SD capture. You can 
> find cheaper cards but you KNOW the PVRs will work well with myth, 
> including things like CC. The remote works well, and the setup for it 
> is included in all of the "all-in-one" Myth distributions. Basically 
> it's "Gonna Work".
>
> The Plextor is a great device, and is available for $50 these days 
> (after rebate). It does have some limitations:
>
> Although the Plextor will do hardware compression for MPEG2 and MPEG4 
> (including the DiVX-branded variants), only the MPEG4 modes are 
> supported by MythTV, so if you need MPEG2, say for burning DVDs or 
> streaming to a device that can only play MPEG2 (like a MediaMVP) you 
> will have to transcode first.
>
> Because it uses a chip that was originally designed for security 
> systems the Plextor does not encode the audio into the MPEG stream (as 
> a PVR does). It appears to your Myth (or any other Linux) system as a 
> sound card input, though ALSA handles it well. You have to use your 
> main CPU to compress the audio (assuming you want to, you could use 
> uncompressed audio if you want to waste the space), but MPEG3 audio 
> compression is not really CPU intensive.
>
> I would not use the Plextor for recording progressive scan stuff. It 
> de-interlaces everything before compression, as was mentioned the 
> other day on this list I believe.
>
> Since it is a USB device, if you have a lot of buss contention there 
> could be problems, but unless you're running hard drives or something 
> like that I wouldn't worry about that too much.
>
> It does require a "wall wart" power supply, if that's a concern to you.
>
> And of course remember that the Plextor is an analog SD only unit.
>
> Still, if I didn't already have 2 of them I'd grab one for that $50 
> price.
>
> One other thing: The Plextor (and the Hauppauge for that matter, 
> except the OEM versions) come with software that includes access to 
> scheduling information. Whether using that for MythTV is a violation 
> of the EULA is a matter of conjecture, but it's something to be aware of.
>
> Having that Windows or Mac PVR software might make it easier to sell 
> the unit should you ever decide to, or perhaps if you pass it along to 
> somebody who doesn't want to run Linux.
>
> Finally, for OSS purists, the Plextor requires non-GPLed modules, the 
> PVR modules are now part of the kernel. This doesn't bother me but it 
> seems to distress some folks.
>
>
>> Oh, and I just noticed that the price on the AMD LE-1600 45W 
>> processor is down to around $40- does anyone know if that would work 
>> well as opposed to a VIA C7 for a fanless/singlefan box 
>> configuration?  As Paul was saying- the big huge loud box usually 
>> isn't a big hit :)  Maybe building a box with that would be cheap and 
>> quiet...
>
> The usual question: Do you want to do HD? Should be no problem with SD 
> stuff but it might get pushed a bit for HD, especially if you are not 
> getting XvMC help from your graphics card, which is likely in a small 
> format system.
>
> Looks like great progress is being made in using the AppleTV device as 
> an HD-capable MythTV frontend, both under Mac OS/X and pure Linux. I 
> don't think you could buy a full machine using the LE-1600 for less 
> than the cost of an AppleTV, especially as they are available 
> refurbed. A nice quiet small solution.
>
> beww
>
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