[mythtv-users] Video Card Usage

[Ian Armstrong]

On Monday 15 Oct 2007, Dean Harding wrote:
> Timothy M. Admire wrote:
> > It was mentioned that the PVR350 support was going away soon... is that
> > for sure, and if so, would that render the 350's decoder completely
> > useless in the future, or would it just not see any additional
> > development?  I'm trying to make a good decision here, but I don't want
> > to spend more than the price of a 350 and I also do not want to buy a
> > new CPU and mobo right now.
>
> My understanding of the PVR-350 is that it only works in very limited
> scenarios (that is, displaying standard definition digital TV). If you
> want to do anything else (e.g. MythVideo, high-def, etc) then it's not
> going to work.

Not quite true. Although the PVR350 is capable of MPEG decoding in hardware, 
it can be reconfigured to display YUV images instead. It then becomes like 
any other video card that offers a video overlay with hardware scaling. The 
only real impact is that the CPU has to decode the video, just like it would 
for other video cards. I routinely use MythVideo for watching various format 
video files on a PVR350 without a problem. Programs like mplayer & xine also 
work fine. It can't cope with hi-def video, but it's not aimed at that.

-- 
Ian