What's a good cheap tuner?

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kleptophobiac

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I'm looking to get a PVR 350 for my primary tuner, mainly because of the framebuffer out to svideo, and the ability to capture audio throught the pci bus rather than through a stupid jumper that plugs back into the sound card.

From what I've seen, the PVR 250 would be a good secondary (same HQ, less extra stuff) to do just recording.... but it also comes with a remote control. Here's what I'm looking for:

- High quality tuner
- No FM
- No remote
- No framebuffer out
- Linux/mythtv friendly
- Cheaper than PVR 250

Can anybody help me find something like that? Since I haven't seen the output of many of these gizmos myself, I can't really speak to their quality, and need somebody to relay some personal experience. :)

Thanks!!
 
most of the cheap $20 cards out there use brooktree/happauge chips which are not bad at all imo, and im sure mythtv should support them as they are extremely common video capture cards...

think tiger direct has one for like $20~$30
 
The original 250 used a Conexant CX23415 decoder chip which required a heatsink (the 350 also uses this chip), the newer 250 (and the 250 MCE) use a Conexant CX23416 chip which does not require a heatsink.

The cheap $20 cards use a brooktree BT8x8 chip and all encoding is done in software. The older Hauppauge WinTV models used this chip as well as many other cards including ATI's older TV Wonder series.

A newer "cousin" the the BT chips is the Conexant CX2388x chip used with newer WinTV cards and the Leadtek TV2000XP and others. This is another software encoder.

Another chip is the Philips SAA713x which is used with the Fly Video and Compro cards, quality is good but there are issues with the picture quality (less sharp pictue). Again another software based encoder.

The ATI card I linked to is based on the newer Conexant CX32880 (referred to as "Blackbird") and has similar quality as the 250 cards, as far as I can tell the only real difference is that it cost less and comes with the Theater 200 chip that ATI uses with their AIW cards giving you great VIVO capabilities. :) You can also find cards based on this chip by Hauppauge and Leadtek.

The good thing is that the BT8x8 are very well supported with the CX2388X (being newer) is gaining support. I don't know about the SAA713x mostly because I've never had to deal with them. These are all software based cards so you'll need a good and modern CPU (even with Linux) to get the most out of them. I believe the PVR Hauppauge cards have the widest support when it comes to Myth but I'm not sure. If you want the image quality of a 250 then don't get a software based card.

Hauppauge does not make chips BTW.

I have two 250MCE cards in my box and I just love them, I've seen the feed from my friends 9800AIW and can't imagine why he dropped the cash for it. ;)
 
SJetski71 said:
PVR-250 MCE for $99? http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=VG-HA00186
Click to expand...
Thats a "Roslyn" Hauppauge card made only for MCE nachines that uses the "Blackbird" chip. The thing I don't like is that fact that Z-Buy calls it a 250MCE card when it is not. You have to have the correct drivers for it to work and I've seen quite a few people get that card form them thinking it was a 250MCE and try to install the 250MCE drivers, just not going to work.
As side from the dip shits at Z-Buy it's a good card, it's pretty much a 250MCE but at less cost. If you're thinking of getting it then you'll need to DL the correct drivers off of here (click on MCE at the left hand side).

Another place to get one is on Snapstream site (they call it a 250BTV) where you can buy a package deal of BTV with one of these cards for like $139. Nice bundle if you ask me, another place is PC Alchemy where they have several bundles to choose from.
 
I second the tuner-only E-Home Wonder that CrimandEvil mentioned.
 
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