TV card

[Shachar Shemesh]

On 23/01/11 16:04, Stan Goodman wrote:
> I am considering installing a TV card in my desktop machine, to  enable me
> to view programming of terrestrial digital TV stations. I would be
> grateful for any remarks from users of such cards about reliability, ease
> of installation, ease of use, availability of drivers, and other pertinent
> characteristics. I would be interested in viewing video both on the
> monitor, monitor in a partial screen, and sometimes through an existing
> external analog TV receiver.
>
> Ability to record video is a secondary consideration for me, as far as I
> can now predict.
>    

If the ability to record is secondary, I'd go with the simplest cards. I 
have a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 card, which is excellent for recording (I 
was actually too lazy to set up a full DVR - we record using a glorified 
"cat /dev/video0 >  show.mpg"), but it is much more difficult to watch 
live TV with it (couldn't get it to work, even though, in theory, 
/dev/video24 should work just like with the dumb card).

Be aware that if you use the card's build in encoder, you suffer a 
mandatory 1-2 seconds delay. Trying to watch the stream sooner than 
that, and you might reach a point where the output compresses so well 
that the card's encoder decides to keep it inside until it has enough 
data, and your player will reach the end of file and terminate. This 
means that even if your card is an encoding card, you will want to use 
the non-encoded output for watching live TV.

Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com