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Hrm... lets see, I have an anologue Hauppauge controller, PC, and DivX encoder and Hauppauge DVB-s card that can pipe the MPEG2 transport stream to disk, the software to tie it all together, will they be suing me next?

Let's face it, it's just rudimentary off the shelf hardware put in a different box, if someone decides to make a PC that looks like a funky box will be get sued too? Based on the hardware the patent seems unsubstantiated, looking at the software it looks unsubstantiated, I bet TiVO even use the Video For Linux API.

There is also who have a linux based bt878 tv tuner card and a MJEG encoder card.

Not sure what the quality is like on either of those solutions.

Most of the boards including the Hauppauge are OEM'd TechnoTrend boards, which are based on the Fujitsu Siemens reference board and chipset... I doubt the DVB drivers would work.

Even though both DTV systems are similar in terms of MPEG2, the frontend demodulator is quite different for Digital Terrestrial, the US uses 8VSB and Europe COFDM, hence different chipset designs. I'm sure in time a common chipset will emerge, just like how most TV's in the UK handle NTSC ok.

Now DirecTV apparently uses the DVB-s standard so there's a very good chance of the European boards working.

For euro digital cable it's QAM-64 modulation in a 8mhz carrier (opposed to 6mhz), refered to as DVB-c, I'm not sure what the US cableco's are using.

Just like the Hauppauge DVB boards... I have one here in the UK and the kick ass, Linux TV not only produce Linux drivers for them but a whole suite of utilities that do PVR functionality, time shiting and 'dvbstream' that actually lets you redirect the MPEG2 transport stream to various other PC's over the network.

On a related note, I picked up a DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) digtal radio receiver the other day, I can save the MP2 baseband strem directly to disk... no loss of quality, you can actually record all the stations within the same multiplex at once since they all come through the same COFDM transport stream. The datacasts are pretty smooth (and quick) too.. take a look at radio, if they get this into portable devices then this will give 3G a run for its money when it comes to rudimentary information like news, sports scores etc :)

the company name is 'convergence integrated media GmbH' or simply 'convergence', NOT 'Digital Convergence', so they're NOT the company who did the infamous (license-wise) :Cue:Cat (this company is called 'Digital:Convergence', btw), but the company who also does the (pretty cool) LinuxTV-drivers for DVB-cards from Siemens/Hauppauge.

the portability issue is softened by direct support of DirectFB as backend by ClanLib, GTK 2.0+ and even SDL (from not-yet-released version 1.2.3 on, get it from CVS), so basically writing code for one of these will give you portability beyond Linux. GGI supports it as well, but not the way it was intended (they're just re-using the binary drivers with their own API).

while replacing X might be something you COULD do with DirectFB (if you'd really want to), code-size and speed seem to be of more concern to the developers, which is quite understandable if you've got settop-boxes in mind. The approach of X is at totally different one, i.e. network-transparent, hardware-independent, portable graphics. DirectFB can simply (additionally and optionally) support the needs of a typical X application/client, so the article was maybe a little bit too anti-X ..

1. PVR - record TV to hard drive, pause live TV etc.
2. basic local programming guide
3. advanced local programming guide (recommendations, sophisticated search etc.)
4. modular component fits well into home AV system

1. monthly fee
2. some tracking of user activity

1. find a way to get TV listings for your locality
2. find some PVR software (if it didn't already come with your video hardware)

Linux DVB API

By the way: this is the API the Nokia Mediaterminal uses. They are going to opensource their software on the OST website.

swann

Convergence, the company behind linuxtv.org, was finally not taken over by Lineo but is still looking for investors.

Convergence is a founding member of the TV Linux Alliance and will continue to fight for Open Source software in our future TV sets because we don't want big brother in our living rooms.

greetings

swann

256M ram - $40

• Radeon (Windows solution) comes with TV on demand software that is free to use thanks to the Guide Plus+(TM) TV listings broadcast in North America.
• Hauppauge WinTV-PVR
• ShowShifter - a Windows-based software package for ATI, Hauppauge, and Matrox capture cards.
• SnapStream (as previously mentioned by someone else
• The Linux solutions can be found at VCR-HOWTO or linuxtv.org

I'm sorry, I have ZERO sympathy for the guy who wants to dial in to set his clock yet not pay for TiVo service.

First thing is if you set up a shell on your TiVo, you can connect from another PC and set your time manually. You never need to dial TiVo again.

Second, come on. The guy *KNEW* that TiVo expects a subscription. How can he rationally expect TiVo to be a viable company without subscriptions?

Third, if he wants TiVo-like functionality, he could have saved a bit on his $400 investment. Buy an ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder or a Hauppauge card. There are others as well.

• The Radeon (Windows solution) comes with TV on demand software - Radeon features - that are free to use thanks to the Guide Plus+(TM) TV listings broadcast in North America.
  
  
• the Hauppauge (Windows solution) - Hauppauge WinTV-PVR - even boasts about burning a show to CDR for watching on your DVD player - something TiVO CANNOT do.
  
  
• ShowShifter - a Windows-based software package for ATI, Hauppauge, and Matrox capture cards.
  
  
• The Linux solution can be found at VCR-HOWTO or linuxtv.org

Besides, with digital TV/HDTV you really do want to get the original MPEG2 stream instead of decoding it once, and then encoded again when you record. Any set-top boxers/satellite recievers with firewire out?

I don't know about the availability of DVB (== Digital Video Broadcast, a standard developed and deployed in Europe for digital TV in MPEG-2 format) content in the U.S., but there are solutions available that do just that. Have a look at http://www.linuxtv.org or http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/

If you're at the NAB, check out the LinuxTV Box at booth E-2333/07. We have a linux based box with DVB reception (Digital TV standard in the rest of the world), a PVR, DVD-Player, MP3 and Audio CD playback, a fast graphics library (DirectFB, http://directfb.org) that allowes true transparent windowing with GTK support, a MHP (multimedia home platform) stack and of course the variety of network access you are used to from a linux box. On top of that we have a nice user interface that glues it all together.

We are a german company, convergence integrated media, with offices in berlin, san francisco and amsterdam. Most of the software is open source, check out http://linuxtv.org for more info.

Have fun,
Christian Wolff.

Anyone play around with hardware MPEG2 encoding? I like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR (different than the regular WinTV), but it looks like this thing is Windows only :( I'd like to be able to capture and record stuff directly to MPEG2. Anyone know about any Linux drivers for this one? The regular WinTV works with video4linux, but this one apparently does not.

I understand the guys at LinuxTV have drivers for a particular board with the Visiontech KFir chip but I've never seen this board anywhere...

Anyone play around with hardware MPEG2 encoding? I like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR (different than the regular WinTV), but it looks like this thing is Windows only :( I'd like to be able to capture and record stuff directly to MPEG2. Anyone know about any Linux drivers for this one? The regular WinTV works with video4linux, but this one apparently does not.

I understand the guys at LinuxTV have drivers for a particular board with the Visiontech KFir chip but I've never seen this board anywhere...

No need for Tivo or ReplayTV.

-Hans

Get yourself an MPEG2 encoder for recording off-air signals. See here.

Linuxmedialabs.com place seems to sell boards, but not for cheap.

You could also buy a standard tvtuner board and use these or these drivers.

• linuxtv
• inria.fr
• dvb.org
• protocol notes
• gilat
• europeonline
• drdish
• helius
• telemann.com
• broadcast.philips

See Linuxtv for the drivers and more information about the PCI card

A community access DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) could potentialy solve many problems with a public wireless internet. It provides MPEG-2 packets for community tv channels, mp3 packets for community radio, auxilary data packets for community internet and a CAS (content authorisation system) for privacy.

Right now setting up for DVB is obscenely expensive (the ammount of money my employer is shelling out is just plain scary) but this will come down, the fact that DVB is an open standard means that it can be implemented with free software on commodity hardware (Moores Law). linuxtv.org has resources on DVB with linux.

The only major problem I can see is transmission, as this will require real infastructure that can't be done with software on cheap commodity hardware. It could be done however, if gov't required existing broadcasters to share their transmitters. SBS shares ABC's transmitter in Sydney for analogue broadcasts, though I don't know if it can actually be done with digital tv (I'm not an RF type person, anyone care to comment?).

Just some stuff I've been thinking about lately.

As for software decoders, the ones for Windows don't seem very optimized. And Linux decoders are still being worked on. For those of you interested in Linux DVD, I recommend that you check out the LiViD Project and the Linux TV site.

I believe it's in the works.

--
This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along.

Well, if you want to go to linuxtv.org and they havbe a proposed hardware decoder with drivers for linux.

we will update the linuxtv.org website tomorrow with some info about the DVD file format.

a dvd has the capacity of 2-4 gigs right?
i'm guessing that not too many people are going to
have their entire collection of dvds sitting on
their harddrive. anyone have any status about
www.linuxtv.org ?