[mythtvnz] PVR150 replacement (resent)

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sun, 31 Jul 2011 20:41:39 +1200, you wrote:

>
>Greetings
>
>My 6 year old PVR150 is starting to get unreliable. With no kernel or
>driver changes on my backend I've had 4 occurrences of the card simply not
>recording anything on its s-video input from the Sky box in the last
>month. Rebooting the box from a cold start gets things back but of course
>I can only do that after I have missed a few recordings!!
>
>I'm sure there are PCIEx1 cards available now which would provide the
>analog input I require that won't be quite as clunky as the PVR150.
>Anyone have any ideas for a suitable replacement?
>
>Cheers

I am not at all sure that you will be able to find an S-Video input on
a PCIe card.  S-Video is a dying technology - it is now hard to buy a
TV that supports it.  In fact, all analogue video is now a dying
technology, and it is unlikely to be put on new cards.  Also, PCIe
card support is not as widespread in Linux as you are assuming.  There
were relatively few PCIe cards with good support last time I looked a
couple of months ago.  PCI and USB support is much better than PCIe
support.  So your only option might be to see if you can get a second
hand PVR-150 or PVR-500 (= dual PVR-150) on TradeMe.  But before you
do that, try doing a little maintenance on your existing PVR-150.
Check the cable to it - cables do give trouble more often than the
electronics.  Pull the card out of its slot and (using anti-static
procedures), clean its S-Video and PCI connectors and the slot it goes
into, then replace it.  Make sure to jiggle the card a little in its
slot to get the best contact, in case there is still some dirt on the
contacts.