On Sat, 2009-10-31 at 14:20 -0700, Tony Ross wrote:
> Andy Walls wrote:
> 
> >> I currently have an Hauppauge PVR-500MCE which is working well for
> >> my needs, but wish to capture digital ATSC transmissions in my area.
> >>
> >> I purchased an HVR-1800 for the purpose but am dismayed to find that
> >> it has a (new to me) PCIe connection rather than PCI.
> >>
> >> What PCI cards (or USB for that matter, but the MPEG2 hardware
> >> compression is desired) are others using to enable ivtv, please?
> >>
> >> Thank you.
> >
> > An HVR-1600 is PCI.  It can capture Over The Air ATSC or North
> > American Cable (clear) QAM for digitial TV.  It can caputre and MPEG
> > compress NTSC from over the air or other analog standards from the
> > video inputs. It can perform analog and digital TV capture at the
> > same time.
> 
> 
> Thank you, but I get the distinct impression that there are driver problems
> with the HVR-1600, as evidenced by the thread "HVR-1600 Improvements". I
> will look for one on Craigslist however, in the hopes that Devin achieves
> his goals.


Well, no.  It's very stable for the common use cases: capturing and
compressing analog video and passing along digital TV from the ATSC/QAM
tuner and demodulator.

Raw/uncompressed YUV video is a mode almost no one uses with the card.
When have you used the YUV mode with your PVR500?  I would think you
likely never have.  Raw YUV capture with the HVR-1600 probably won't
matter to you at all - so it doesn't matter if it doesn't work perfectly
right now, or ever. ;)


> > However, you don't need an MPEG encoder for digital TV.  USB devices
> > DTV devices are cheaper and more flexible, if you already have an
> > analog MPEG encoder card like the PVR-500.
> 
> The analog PVR-500MCE tuner is used only for VHS video capture; there are no
> analog television broadcasts here.
> 
> I do desire the ATSC capture in an MPEG2 format for my specific needs, and
> prefer that it be done in hardware. Are you suggesting that a USB DTV device
> can somehow be routed through the PVR-500 to achieve the hardware MPEG2
> compression, or do I misunderstand you?

Yes, you misunderstand.  The ATSC broadcast as sent over the air by the
broadcaster is a digital MPEG-2 TS - it's already compressed.  No
hardware compression is needed on your PC for ATSC or clear QAM, and the
HVR-1600 or any USB DTV capture device doesn't need to compress it.

You just need a device to tune and pass the MPEG TS stream along to your
favorite software decoder: mplayer, MythTV, etc.

Regards,
Andy


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