[Gloucs] TV Card

[Alan Pope]

On 27/12/05, Christian Trapp <christian.trapp at gmx.net> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hello all,
>
> I intend to enhance my linux computer with a analog/digital tv card. I would like to record movies eg on the harddisk and to delete the

DVB-T is digital terrestrial television (branded as Freeview in the
UK), DVB-S is digital satellite television (the main vendor being Sky
in the UK). DVB-T is easily do-able under linux, DVB-S is do-able but
you can't receive Sky, only other non-Sky satellites.

> advertisment between. It would be also fine if I could record two movies at the same time (probably technical not possible).
>

With DVB-T multiple channels are on the same multiplexor (MUX). As you
record the entire MUX you are effectively recording two (or more)
channels at once. If you wish to record two (or more) channels which
are on different MUXs then you need more than one tuner, or a
multi-tuner card. You also need software that supports multiple
tuners. I am aware that some of the Linux based software makes
assumptions about it only running once and won't run properly if
invoked multiple times. YMMV - it depends on the software you use.

> Another question is the hardware. What card is working with linux (my distri is MEPIS at the moment). My CPU runs with 1.8 Mhz, RAM = 512 MB.
>

Should be okay. Recording DVB-T streams isn't actually very intensive,
it's the subsequent post-processing - editing (chopping out the ads
and top and tailing the programme) and optionally compressing/encoding
that chews up CPUs and spits them out.

> I would like to hear your ideas, thanks in advance.
>

The linux tv site [1] is worth a mooch. Specifically the page about
supported DVB-T [2] cards is very handy before you buy.

I have a Freecom USB stick, a couple of my friends have the Twinhan
USB model. The picture quality both is superb. The USB models are in
many ways better than the PCI ones because they suffer less from
interference inside the PC case, and are more flexible in that they
can be easily unplugged and moved to another machine if required.

Hope that helps.
Al.

[1] http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
[2] http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-T_cards