Mailing List Archive: Ausu Pundit / Hauppauge Freestyle and some more questions ...

Ausu Pundit / Hauppauge Freestyle and some more questions ...

Aug 2, 2003, 3:34 PM

Post #1 of 5 (1435 views)

I have almost made the decision on buying the Pundit for making it my
MythTV FE/BE + Home Entertainment center.

Before I shell out my dough, I have some questions. I was hoping someone
will help me.

1) I read Hauppauge PVR 250 will be a tight fit in Pundit, but it is
possible. How about Freestyle. I guess it should be of the same
dimension ?

2) How is the audio quality from the Pundit ? I know that the SPDIF is
still not supported in linux, so if I have to connect the 5.1 audio out
to my speakers, are there any other way of doing it ? Coz the rear panel
seems to carry only line-in, line-out and stereo out. Do they also
double as Front Speakers, Back Speakers and Central speakers like in the
Shuttle SK45G ? If so then I can directly connect them to my speaker ?
What will be the performance ?

3) How is the build in graphics card performance ? Can I use it to play
some occasional 3-D games ? Is 3-D acceleration supported in Linux ?

4) Today is the last day for the circuit city PVR 250 deal and I am
thinking if I should go for it. I already have 2 tunner cards (WinTV go
and Aver Studio). They system I am think of building is Pundit + 2.4
GHz HT P4 + 133 ATA 80GB HD + DDR 333 512MB RAM. Do I still need a 250
to store high quality video ?

thanks a lot for any help,
Saravan

Re: Ausu Pundit / Hauppauge Freestyle and some more questions ... [ In reply to ]

jmorris at beau

Aug 2, 2003, 5:23 PM

Post #2 of 5 (1426 views)

Permalink

On 2 Aug 2003, Saravanan Subbiah wrote:

> 2) How is the audio quality from the Pundit ? I know that the SPDIF is
> still not supported in linux, so if I have to connect the 5.1 audio out
> to my speakers, are there any other way of doing it ? Coz the rear panel
> seems to carry only line-in, line-out and stereo out. Do they also
> double as Front Speakers, Back Speakers and Central speakers like in the
> Shuttle SK45G ? If so then I can directly connect them to my speaker ?
> What will be the performance ?

Why would it matter? The PVR-250 only captures stereo, so unless you also
plan to use it as a DVD player it won't make much difference. Send the
two channel sound down to your stereo and if the program had Dolby
Surround Sound encoded in it your amp should be able to dematrix it.
Besides, the optical jack on the Pundit is up front so you probably
wouldn't want a cable sticking out all of the time anyway. (And btw, I
wanna know what mullethead decided to put the optical jacks on the front,
behind the flip down panel?)

> 4) Today is the last day for the circuit city PVR 250 deal and I am
> thinking if I should go for it. I already have 2 tunner cards (WinTV go
> and Aver Studio). They system I am think of building is Pundit + 2.4
> GHz HT P4 + 133 ATA 80GB HD + DDR 333 512MB RAM. Do I still need a 250
> to store high quality video ?

Probably not, but it does take almost all of the load off of the CPU. So
that means it will run cooler/quieter or leave those cycles free for other
jobs like commercial skiplist generation, DIVX transcoding, MAME/MESS,
etc.

--
John M. http://www.beau.org/~jmorris This post is 100% M$ Free!
Geekcode 3.1:GCS C+++ UL++++$ P++ L+++ W++ w--- Y++ b++ 5+++ R tv- e* r

Re: **SPAM** Ausu Pundit / Hauppauge Freestyle and some morequestions ... [ In reply to ]

wd at pobox

Aug 2, 2003, 5:26 PM

Post #3 of 5 (1429 views)

Permalink

>1) I read Hauppauge PVR 250 will be a tight fit in Pundit, but it is
>possible. How about Freestyle. I guess it should be of the same
>dimension ?

Same dimensions.

>3) How is the build in graphics card performance ?

Not that great. Playback of an MPEG2 stream from my PVR250 takes around
50-60% CPU on my 2.2GHz celeron. This may be due to poor XV support or
just a poor graphics chip design. I'm not sure.

>Can I use it to play
>some occasional 3-D games ? Is 3-D acceleration supported in Linux ?

No and No.

>4) Today is the last day for the circuit city PVR 250 deal and I am
>thinking if I should go for it. I already have 2 tunner cards (WinTV go
>and Aver Studio). They system I am think of building is Pundit + 2.4
>GHz HT P4 + 133 ATA 80GB HD + DDR 333 512MB RAM. Do I still need a 250
>to store high quality video ?

Probably not. Don't feel rushed by the circuit city deal, though. Zbuy
has a Freestyle for $86, which is what I use. Personally, I like the
hardware MPEG2 quality of the card. CPU usage is near zero while
recording. Though the P4 should be a pretty fast CPU for a mythtv setup,
the high CPU usage of the Pundit's video playback may put a strain on the
CPU while watching live TV. (simultaneous video compression,
decompression, and playback)

That's just a guess, though. Maybe somebody who has experience with
software-encoding mythtv on a Pundit (or other system with onboard SiS
graphics) would be more qualified to answer your question.

-WD

Re: Ausu Pundit / Hauppauge Freestyle and some more questions ... [ In reply to ]

saravanan_subbiah at sbcglobal

Aug 2, 2003, 8:44 PM

Post #4 of 5 (1409 views)

Permalink

On Sat, 2003-08-02 at 17:23, John Morris wrote:
> On 2 Aug 2003, Saravanan Subbiah wrote:
>
> > 2) How is the audio quality from the Pundit ? I know that the SPDIF is
> > still not supported in linux, so if I have to connect the 5.1 audio out
> > to my speakers, are there any other way of doing it ? Coz the rear panel
> > seems to carry only line-in, line-out and stereo out. Do they also
> > double as Front Speakers, Back Speakers and Central speakers like in the
> > Shuttle SK45G ? If so then I can directly connect them to my speaker ?
> > What will be the performance ?
>
> Why would it matter? The PVR-250 only captures stereo, so unless you also
> plan to use it as a DVD player it won't make much difference. Send the
> two channel sound down to your stereo and if the program had Dolby
> Surround Sound encoded in it your amp should be able to dematrix it.

No. It is for DVD. I want to replay my DVD/ VCR/ Receiver / PS with one
Pundit running MythTV ! I don't even want to have a receiver or
amplifier. I just want connect th output directly to speakers and play
good surround sound. Don't know how good the sound will be from pundit.
May be I will have to go in for SB Audigy2 or something. But then I will
be wasting one PCI slot.

> Besides, the optical jack on the Pundit is up front so you probably
> wouldn't want a cable sticking out all of the time anyway. (And btw, I
> wanna know what mullethead decided to put the optical jacks on the front,
> behind the flip down panel?)

Yeah, it is completely moronic to place optical out in the front.What
did they think? That I will connect it to my head sets or something ?

-Saravan

Re: Ausu Pundit / Hauppauge Freestyle and some more questions ... [ In reply to ]

lists at forevermore

Aug 2, 2003, 8:57 PM

Post #5 of 5 (1419 views)

Permalink

> No. It is for DVD. I want to replay my DVD/ VCR/ Receiver / PS with one
> Pundit running MythTV ! I don't even want to have a receiver or
> amplifier. I just want connect th output directly to speakers and play
> good surround sound. Don't know how good the sound will be from pundit.
> May be I will have to go in for SB Audigy2 or something. But then I will
> be wasting one PCI slot.

Well, considering that the sound out of the pundit isn't amplified,
you'll still need a receiver. Well, unless you're using powered
speakers.

I don't know what the linux support is like for converting the extra
audio ports into the 5.1 setup. I have to use my mic input to get sound
from my tv card into myth (I never could figure out what that btaudio
thing was, nor get it working with my card).

-Chris

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