On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:45:26 -0000, Alexander Fisher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Living in the UK, 2 DVB cards seem to be the way forward. Am I right in > thinking that they all produce MPEG2 streams so no encoding has to be done > in software?
Yes. All the TV recordings are streamed directly to the HD. Big files though :-) > I've come up with a 3 card shortlist all available from > www.scan.co.uk (where I'll be placing an order for some unrelated stuff > later this week.) They are ... > > Avermedia DVB-T PCI Card �64.44 > Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-T Freeview receiver PCI (909) �62.06 Vision + PCI TV > Tuner - HDTV Compatible + Remote �46.06 > Scan used to do a cut down OEM version of the Nova-T without a remote which was a good bit cheaper but it appears to be gone now. I would definitely go Hauppauge Nova-T though - my two cards are excellent and have good linux drivers. > Or should I just go for the cheapest? Shouldn't the outputted MPEG2 stream > be identical for each card? In theory, but I've read that the Hauppauge cards are much better at holding a weak signal which was important for me as I'm pretty far from the transmitter... > The option to receive some of the top-up-tv > channels might be good too. Has anybody got this working yet? Nope. In theory you can do it with the right supported hardware but the Nova-T PCI won't as it has no CAM slot. > > I'm hoping that the system will be capable of recording two programmes, > whilst simultaneously letting me watch a previously recorded show on the > xbox. I don't suppose I'll want to do this that often but it would be nice. You can do this. Indeed, over Christmas I did so a couple of times :-) > > Since my MB only supports UDMA-2, I'm also thinking of buying an addon PCI > ATA card. Go SATA if you can - the cabling is much neater :-) You will probably need a bit more disc space. I allocated 230G for my video and it's 80% full now. The thing with SATA is that not all cards work with Linux. Whatever you go for you should check the linux drivers exist first! > I'm guessing I won't need any soundcards in a DVB only system? Presumably not on a backend box. HTH Neil -- Neil Milne _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
