Sorry... re-posting this reply as I forgot to change the subject line. It
was tagged by my spam filter.
>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
was tagged by my spam filter.
>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