Guide to TV Out/ Video In cards using Linux

saggating · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 25

Hi,

I have been using Gentoo for a while now, I'm a little stuck and could do with some advice. So I thought I better register on the forums.

I'm doing a project where I'm creating a "Media Centre" type application with Gentoo. I have a ATI All-In-Wonder 128 with the Rage chipset. Doing research on these forums and also the Gentoo Desktop guides, It looks as though I'm going to have a hard time getting this working.

I would rather just buy a card which is more Linux friendly. I'm after the following features

What's the best graphics card to give me this sort of functionality under linux. Or just point me at a HCL

Many thanks
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teknomage1 · Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 10:42 pm Post subject:

seems like a older nvidia card (geforce 2's are way cheap now) would provide tv out and depending on the card video in. And then use something like a haupage for the tv tuner.

saggating · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 25

Nvidia looks like a good choice for linux I take it.

Thanks for tha advice teknomage1, I will do some more researchon applicable nvida cards.
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ColeSlaw · Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:45 pm Post subject:

You might consider the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350. I believe it has pretty good support under Linux and it has both Tv-In (Composite and S-VIDEO) with MPEG-2 Encoder onboard, and TV-out (Just S-VIDEO I think) with MPEG-2 Decoder on board.

It's kind of expensive, but seems to be a "Do-it-all" solution.
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karnesky · Apprentice Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 218

The one-card suggestions made so far are very sound. However, I must say that the Matrox Marvel G400TV has the best TV Out EVER. It also has a superb tuner, but the drivers currently suck. If money weren't a consideration, I'd probably opt for both a marvel & a cheap PCI BTTV card to do the actual tv-in due to the wonderful software support of those cards.

saggating · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 25

Thanks guys. I do like the sound of a one card solution, I'm just looking for a card which has the best support for linux. Money is not too much of a problem. I have been saving up for this project for a while now.

I'm looking for it to work nice and sweet under Linux. I currently have the advantage of being able to buy whatever works, rather than beat a paticular card into submission into working.

Thanks for the info... Keep it coming
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saggating · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 25

I think I will go for the PVR350. found a very good review site on the card. It outlines usage on Windows and Linux

http://www.byopvr.com/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=2
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xylone · Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:33 pm Post subject:

If you want this card to work out of the box, don't count on it

I've been playing around with this card for two weeks now and still no stable working system...

Just to warn you..

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ColeSlaw · Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:50 pm Post subject:

I don't have a 350, but I can tell you I got my PVR-250 working with very little work.

If you need help you can try:

http://ivtv.sourceforge.net/
http://kmos.org/~ckennedy/ivtv

Perhaps even...

http://www.mythtv.org/
http://wopr.yi.org/mythtv.html

Those may help

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venkat · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:13 pm Post subject:

pvr-350's capture part works great with ivtv drivers, but the tv-out part is still under heavy development. i experience lock-ups etc. when i use the tv-out feature with mythtv.

you can only output an mpeg to the decoder (also YUV). this means you gotta do some transcoding (really CPU intensive) if you wanna watch an avi or other streams on TV.

i'd recommend going with a video card based TV-out for now, untill the ivtv drivers become fully capable. this'll let you play any stream on TV that your computer can play.

ColeSlaw · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:50 pm Post subject: