TV card

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Jan 23, 2011, at 4:04 PM, 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.


I would not bother. The first problem is that a PCI card costs, when  
you can find them a lot of money. One on-line vendor wanted well over  
100 Euro for them.

If you shop around, you can buy a USB tuner for 100 NIS. There are two  
problems with them. The first is that the modem chip has stayed the  
same for years, but the tuner chip keeps changing. I have two  
different ones, purchased a year apart and neither are supported by  
anything except Windows.

So if you want to run them on Linux, you have to find an exact model  
and version that is supported.
They do exist, it may be difficult to find one. Otherwise Linux  
recognizes the modem chip but can't tune any stations.

The second is that if you leave them on for a long period of time,  
they tend to overheat.

The irony of this is that a stand alone decoder box, with the ability  
to record to a USB disk or memory stick costs 299 NIS and I have seen  
them on sale for as little as 99 NIS. They need a monitor or TV set to  
play on. Most of them have HDMI outputs which will drive a DVI port on  
a monitor with a cheap cable.

In fact a couple of months ago ACE hardware was selling computer  
monitors, cheap decoder boxes and HDMI to DVI cables as a package.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.