[Rich A]

Originally posted by cmasters
The 350 uses the older 15 version of the MPEG2 encoder. This was much hotter - to a point that some people claim their boards had hardware failure after some time. Older 250's and I believe all 350's use this. Newer 250's use the 16 verison of the encoder. It runs much cooler.

Keep in mind that if you have a 250 and a 350 with different encoders you may have some driver issues installing both in the same machine. SnapStream does not support multi-tuner nor does the bundled Hauppauge WinTV so you would not be able to test with that method anyway.

BTW, I run with three of the older 250's in my machine and while it does run hot it has not failed yet

Wow, that's pretty disappointing for me. I can run both side by side and compare without a problem. The 250 is currently running just fine albeit without full screen playback. The new Shuttle box should take care of that. I guess the only "advantage" of the 350 may be the built in TV out and it's on board FM radio. The FM radio was just icing on the cake for me, but the mpeg of course is very important. If the reliabilty and/or quality of the 350 is going to be sub par when compared to the 250, I may just stick with the 250. I'll have to test for sure.

Thanks for the valued input. - Rich