difference between the wintv 250 and 350?

[seezar]

OK, i'm a HTPC newbie and am a bit confused.


I understand that the difference is that the 350 does hardware decoding wheras the 250 does not.

So what exactly does that mean as far as setup? would the 350 output directly to a TV whereas the 250 would have to go through the primary video card to have the video decoded?

I'm building a system and have on order a RADEON 9600XT video card, Intel D865 PERLL MB and will be running the system on a 2.8C P4.

Would it be overkill to get the 350 or would getting the 350 be a better solution?

[kny3twalker]

a pvr 350 is used mostly for SDTV

since the svideo ouput on most video cards (excluding matrox) sucks

if you are using a HDTV then just connect to the TV via DVI,VGA, or component(not composite) from your video card

so the pvr 250 should be fine

also you may want to do a search on the troubles with a PVR 350

they tend to not like intel motherboard chipsets

and oh everything you said was correct

[seezar]

Thanks so much for the info.

I probably should have also explained my inteded use for my HTPC that I'm building. I no longer have my HD RPTV and will be a while til I replace it. So as far as that goes, I'll only be using my PC for SD until I upgrade my set.

Basically right now I'd like to build a machine to be used for now primarily as a SD DVR until I upgrade my equipment. I'd also like to have my machine to have the ability to expand as my needs later get into HD programming.

I have been reading some of the lockup issues with the 350 and am becoming concerned. That is too bad, cause for my current application it sounds like the 350 would fit the bill nicely. So at this point I'm very leary of getting the 350. I'm not sure how the Radeon 9600 SD output is since I havent received the card yet so I dont really know at this point if the Radeon 96000/250 combo would be the way to go.

I've thought about taking my chances on the 350 and see if I can wait out the problems until the drivers stabilize but that could be risky.