[oclug] What tv tuner card to get

[Jim Little]

Quoting Peter Sjoberg:

> After the MythTV session I started to think of setting up my own system
> but trying to do so as cheap as possible.  The PVR-350 seems to do the
> trick but ~$250 is a but much.
> All this USB/firewire/PCI cards at http://tinyurl.com/6l828 for <$100,
> are they any good?

Only PCI cards are currently supported by MythTV.

> Any experiance with tv tuner card for <$100 that works ok with
> linux/MytTV?

Well I have a couple of Hauppauge WinTV Radio 401 cards, one with the MSP3400
chip and one without (it's practically impossible to tell without actually
looking at the card as Hauppauge changes the chipsets without changing the model
number).  They were a major pain to get working on the Pundit (with the btaudio
driver), let me tell you.

I have found them to be somewhat unreliable but that may be due to heat
problems.  If you want more detail let me know.

If you don't need the TV-out of the 350 you could consider the 250.  It is
somewhat cheaper but still not < C$100.  You can get them on ebay for a good
price if you are patient and vigilant but caveat emptor.

Keep in mind the cheap cards require the compression to be done by your CPU and
thus you will have to spend more money on your overall system if you use one of
those.

HTH,

Jim