[Herts] Freeview on Linux

[Steve Davies]

Steve Clark wrote:
> Anyone watching digital TV on their Linux box? I've been thinking of
> doing this for a while. I have my trusty Pace Twin PVR, but recording on
> the PC would allow for easier archiving to DVD.

MythTV is probably the beast for you. It has several bolt-on modules for
DVD watching and archiving in addition to a very capable core. I have
built a MythTV box twice from scratch "for fun", but do not have it
running at present. I even rewired the UHF antenna outlets all over the
house to make my life easier :)

> There's a load of info at
> 
> http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki
> 
> I'd be looking for a PCI card, but USB could be an option if I could
> resolve the issue with consistently detecting my USB 2.0 PCI card. It
> doesn't have to have an analogue tuner. I've seen various cards around
> the £40 mark with USB options a bit cheaper. Any recommendations? I'd be
> looking at using it from my current Ubuntu install rather than using
> something like one of the dedicated MythTV distros.

I suggest one of the Hauppauge PCI cards, which modern linux kernels
support very well. You can often get them cheap on eBay. While it will
work, USB is not good in terms of streaming large volumes of data - the
PCI bus has much more bandwidth and the option to use DMA.

The MythTV mailing list is very good, although I found it quite
"Hostile" to newbies. Be sure to research any quesitons online before
asking or you might get your head bitten off :).

Cheers,
Steve