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you can use a regular pvr250 (generally) with XP MCE 2005 but you'll need to get the MCE specific drivers

Part of the issue here is... if you have and HDTV why are you running svideo to it? SHould you be running DVI or component to it?

With that card and gbpvr you probably should have switched your video rendering mode from VMR9 to overlay. Also what video decoder you have installed has a big effect on PQ and smoothness...

I think if you went with even a slightly higher card (like a 5200 fx)you'd be in much better shape... If you could swing a nvidia 6x00 and a pure video decoder (and connect your pc to your tv via an HDTV connection method) you'll be able to upscale/deinterlace the content much better imho. *shrug*

re: Closed captioning

First: I wouldn't say the PVR250 is *that* far off picture quality from the pvr150. The difference is marginal (although it probably depends if you're using a svideo source or tuner source). I mean the pvr150 is a smidge better, but it's not like the pvr250 is a dog.

I may be wrong, but I swear there was a driver release coming "soon" or was in beta that had CC support. I'm not sure if that was w/ivtv on linux or if it was windoze driver... Coulda just been voices in my head though so take that with a grain of salt ( I suggest asking on the , shs will know)

e.

another silent front end/client to consider is a MediaMVP which has a very active hacking community.

e.

The mediamvp is pretty cool... I believe there's a lot of MediaMVP linux hacking at SHSpvr forum

It playsback primarily mpeg2 but there are little transcode on the fly utilities that allow it to push divx/etc through it's mpeg2 decoder.

howto use MediaMVP, PVR250, GBPVR make cheap/easy PVR

There are "client" replacments for SageTV and GBPVR that allow you to extend the full functionality of your PC PVR to these little quiet clients over your wired network (a wireless version is in the works... some wireless bridge gateway shennagins are possible depending on the quality of your link/bitrate/quality)

e.

The mediamvp is pretty cool... I believe there's a lot of MediaMVP linux hacking at SHSpvr forum

It playsback primarily mpeg2 but there are little transcode on the fly utilities that allow it to push divx/etc through it's mpeg2 decoder.

howto use MediaMVP, PVR250, GBPVR make cheap/easy PVR

There are "client" replacments for SageTV and GBPVR that allow you to extend the full functionality of your PC PVR to these little quiet clients over your wired network (a wireless version is in the works... some wireless bridge gateway shennagins are possible depending on the quality of your link/bitrate/quality)

e.

I'm not sure which one you are thinking of, but ironcially on the same site you linked to SHSPVR there's a hauppauge model comparison page that helps distinguish visually/chipset wise (but not necessarily features/support) of the different hauppauge cards.

The pvr250's are pretty much EOL'd at this point. I know PCAlchemy has a few pvr250MCE's OEM's in stock but the pvr150's are cheaper.

(note: they sponsor my site, so make of that what you will)

*shrug*

e.

There use to be lots of the 250's and 350's on eBay.
Not anymore. (gratefully I bought 3 of the "48432" versions for my Myth box.)

The 48432 is an OEM version that was bundled with HP boxes, if memory serves me.
This was causing some confusion for buyers, but was a great way to pickup a 250 for half the cost.
Hauppage forum

I would have liked to have seen a comparison of the entire Hauppauge lineup. There was a good link running around somewhere, anyone know of that page URL?

I have looked into this cool linux product from Hauppauge and it looks promising.

Here are some links to get you started.

http://knoppmythwiki.homelinux.org/index.php?page= MediaMVP_LinuxHOWTO
http://www.byopvr.com/displayarticle191.html
http://www.shspvr.com/forum/index.php?h=0&pf=0&c=9

In a recent thread I discovered this little gem: the Hauppage MediaMVP, which reminds me so much of the Linksys WRT54G... I mean, it's a Linux-based networked media player, and of course there are hacked firmwares:

• MediaMVP Media Center
• SHS PVR user forums

The original firmware does not support playing DivX on the box itself (it does if you stream it from the server), but it's very likely that it will be done in the future. MythTV-client functionality is under development.

visit the forums section of SHS PVR

there's a section dedicated to the mediamvp and mediamvp "hacking"/ flashware replacments....

there's been work on a mythtv client, beyondtv client, sagetv client, etc...

Although it's not as sexy as gbpvr, my understanding is the latest update for mediamvp default software *does* do DivX decoding (no idea on what version, to what extent, other limitations etc)

It doesn't solve ALL multimedia client problems... but it is a reasonably priced solutions that's pretty flexible, and quiet.

*Shrug* not sure why you are bolding proprietary streaming system... it's a reasonably "open" system from what I understand... ymmv

e.

Hauppauge MediaMVP is less than 100 bucks at PCAlchemy

There's pleny of mediamvp hacking (including work on a mythtv client) and 3rd party client replacements out there like gbpvr (how to article on my site )

*Shrug*

e.

AFAIK, Hauppauge are now complying correctly, they've got the relevant Busybox sources, and also the kernel sources online.

What's not available are the sources to the IBM proprietary kernel modules for the STB25xx processor's hardware features, nor the client program that runs on the MVP once it's booted.

However some enterprising individuals have managed to figure out most all of the ioctl(2) interfaces to those modules, and also developed native player software that doesn't depend on the HCW supplied windows server software.

Personally, I've got a couple of these now, using the mediamvp plugin for VDR (the Linux DVB PVR system) to get both live and recorded digital TV distributed around the house.

The best link I know of for discussions on using Linux on the MediaMVP are the forums at http://www.shspvr.com/forum/

*shrug*

some enterprising folks in shs's forum have a pass through working (looks like anyhow). It's probably not for the feint of heart though =)

It's not the processor speed, but probablly licensing/DMCA like buggery that the MVP doesn't do AC3 *shrug* but I could be off base on that...

Soo are you selling yours? =)

The forum below might have more of the information your looking for:

http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=38

The web knows everything.

Looks like it just has tftp/bootp in ROM, so it can't run standalone. But at least that also means it's real easy to recover if you screw up!
It would be insanely great to get GDB set up to attach remote processes running on the MVP.

Sorry didn't finish with my example:

Hauppauge incorporated proprietary source as subroutines in the BusyBox (GPL) binaries on the initial release of its MediaMVP. These are the fpage and mpgdec programs, which are clearly part of BusyBox in the ramdisk image.

Subsequent releases the programs were compiled separately, and the very scarce source code release does not include the source to compile the original release version of BusyBox . . .

Does GPL force release of what was previously proprietary source code in this case?

The Win TV 250 PVR has an encoder that some users are having success with the encoding, but it is still very young. Serious discussion is going on on this discussion group. However, the pci card forces users to choose a larger form factor box that can accommodate a pci card instead of the cool small boxes. The MPEG decoder portion has been gloriously included in the new via epia board using the new chipset. I haven't tested how well it works (or if it is supported in linux yet).

In essence, using off the shelf components takes a lot of hardware that would normally be on the motherboard of a true home theater component. Thus, to achieve this we are getting closer but not quite there yet.

All the other operations (mp3/games/networking) etc are already available and very usable on a 933 mhz Via C3.

The WinTV PVR card does take a lot of work to get it going, but once you do it works well.

There is 1 major program with the mpegs(2) it captures. There seems to be a delay with the audio. Just fire up TMPEGEnc and do a multiplex and its fixed.
You can also use TMPEGEnc to edit the video, it works really well.

The mpeg1 encoding is bad, but you have the open of telling it the bitrate that you want to use.

The mpeg2 is not bad, I usually capture at 4MB/sec to fit 22mins of video on a cd.
You can capture up to 12MB/sec if you need to.
I do 6MB/sec if Im not going to archive to cd.

Yes I know its not a tivo, but I can archive my shows to cd or convert to divx if I want to.

Here are some links...
http://pvr.opcenter.de/ for discussion on the card
http://www.shspvr.com/ this guy has good info on the card
http://www.vcdhelp.com/ for your (s)vcd needs

The WinTV PVR card does take a lot of work to get it going, but once you do it works well.

There is 1 major program with the mpegs(2) it captures. There seems to be a delay with the audio. Just fire up TMPEGEnc and do a multiplex and its fixed.
You can also use TMPEGEnc to edit the video, it works really well.

The mpeg1 encoding is bad, but you have the open of telling it the bitrate that you want to use.

The mpeg2 is not bad, I usually capture at 4MB/sec to fit 22mins of video on a cd.
You can capture up to 12MB/sec if you need to.
I do 6MB/sec if Im not going to archive to cd.

Yes I know its not a tivo, but I can archive my shows to cd or convert to divx if I want to.

Here are some links...
http://pvr.opcenter.de/ for discussion on the card
http://www.shspvr.com/ this guy has good info on the card
http://www.vcdhelp.com/ for your (s)vcd needs