[mythtvnz] Re: TV tuner cards - low cost recommendations?

[Graeme Nelson]

Hi all.

Thanks for all that wonderful and useful input, insights, and
recommendations.

A slight change to my initial experimentation configuration is that it
won't be 768MB RAM, it will be 512MB RAM (I thought I had a spare DIMM
slot, but I don't), though from what I have been reading on the MythTV
web site, that shouldn't be a problem.

I downloaded the drivers for the InnoDV SmartTV LE (which are Windows
drivers only) and looked inside the .INF files, etc., and found that
they use the Philips SAA7134 chip and a Philips tuner.  It looks very
configurable, including 4 video sources (tuner, 2x composite, s-video)
and 10 parameters per video source, plus much more.

As I am planning on only having 1 (or maybe 2 at the most) analogue TV
cards in my eventual/"production" PVR system (with 2 or 3 DVB(-S) cards
providing the balance of the 4 tuner cards I plan to have), it sounds
like having a frame grabber card should not be a problem (based both on
the posts here and on the MythTV FAQ etc.).

Based on those findings, and a (currently) very limited budget, I think
I will go ahead with the InnoDV SmartTV LE card.  I will post about my
experience(s) with this card in the mythtv-users list, with probably a
reference to it in the mythtvnz list, so that others can (hopefully)
benefit from my experience with it.

TTFN.,
Graeme
(Computer expert, PVR noob!)