PVR-350 or PVR-250+Xcard/Matrox millenium?

[anders_lange]

Hi I'm building a HTPC, and I wan't to be able to play all kind's of media types from DivX, Xvid to DVD's (MPEG).

Is the PVR-350 any good (and is it able to output DivX and Xvid to the TV-out or only MPEG?) or would I be better of with a PVR-250 and a Xcard or Matrox Millenium as TV-output source?

[reven]

350 can only do unencrypted mpeg1/2. so cant playback dvds (not even ripped ones). and cant playback any avi files.

the xcard is limited to 256 colors on the osd (menus etc), the 350 also suffers from poor drivers causing problems on many systems. i have a 350 and am thinking about getting the xcard for output (quite expensive thou).

ask sub about the xcard apparently he has one. just be warned about the 350 issues (they hopefully will be solved, but thats not 100%)

[Dai]

I have a 350 and an Xcard and I use the Xcard output because the system is more stable this way, it runs for weeks on end without crashing and also because I can play back DVD out of the same TV output. The down side of it is that it is only 256 colours so the pictures plugin and even the album cover graphics on the Albums plugin don't look very good on it.

The other thing about the 256 colour output is that most of the skins look pretty bad on it. I'm going to try the new one that was posted in the delelopment section.

[reven]

how fast is the xcard? the pvr350 seems to be quite slow at changing channels(slower than using SBE and no output) and displaying osd. also how future proof is the xcard, will it work with every version of xvid,divx? or as soon as say divx 6 comes out will that no longer work?

[anders_lange]

I desided to go for the PVR-250 for TV-in(capture) and a matrox millenium G550 for TV-out!
But do the GBpvr software support the matrox tv-out? (it's kind of special with the VGA2TV converter)

[jquinlan]

Quote[/b] ]But do the GBpvr software support the matrox tv-out? (it's kind of special with the VGA2TV converter)

The TV out on the Matrox will display the desktop with the GB-PVR interface, so anything you can see through the VGA port will be seen through the tv-out connection. It is not a special port like the 350 and XCard so no special coding is required by GB-PVR and no crashes or color issues.