AIW9800Pro with a PVR 250 or a PVR 350?

[ClifG]

Right now I have an AIW 9800 Pro and I've used the ATi MMC and Beyond TV and BTV works pretty well for me but the quality is lacking a little. I'd also like to try out SageTV and SageTV doesn't support my AIW so I'm going to get a Hauppauge card.

My local stores have a PVR 250 for $149 and a PVR 350 for $179. I'm wondering which I should get. I would assume the 350 because it does hardware decoding as well and is only $30 more, but I've read in a few posts here that there could be some problems with getting the 350 if you're using a video card tv out.

Is the Tv-out on the 350 any good? I'm using S-video since I just have a 27" WEGA and not an HDTV or anything. I only use TV-out for TIVO-type stuff (which I'm just learning) and watching movies (in mpg/divx/xvid/etc).

Oh, and lastly... right now I use a cable off of the back of my AIW to my Line-In on my on-board sound to get TV audio. I'm guessing the 350 has something similar, right? I hope so, as the audio from my AIW has some pops and static when the video card is chugging away.

Thanks in advance for helping out this noob so I can try SageTV!

[stanger89]

From what you describe I'd give the 350 a try, it should give you the best PQ on your TV. There are a couple limitations with the 350 that you should be aware of. First, is that you cant output "divx/xvid/etc" on the 350, only MPEG. And second is that there will be no OSD on the 350 (you'll need to use your video card to see the Sage interface without 2.0), you'll still need a VC to see anything outside Sage even with 2.0. If either of those are really important, you might as well get a 250 and save some money.

As for audio, that is encoded with the video to MPEG on the 350 and sent over the PCI bus, so there are no connections to your soundcard.

[Crowdx42]

I thought OSD was possible with the 350? I knew X-Card doesn't support it but I though 350 worked?
Patrick

[mlbdude]

He means no OSD in 1.4.

[Crowdx42]

Ahh,, ok, my mistake...
Sure wish there was support for OSD with the X-Card, I have one now sitting on a shelf cause it was just too messy switching back and forth between the vid card and the X-Card.
Patrick