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HDTV Reception Now Available on Linux
-tji writes "A new company, www.pchdtv.com, has just released the first digital TV receiver card for Linux. Along with the Linux drivers, they have also modified xine to support HD playback and add XvMC support for MPEG2 hardware acceleration with some video cards. This has great potential for integration into PVR apps, like freevo and mythtv. There is also another project to reverse engineer drivers for the Teralogic TL880 based DTV cards. The one active developer has done a great job, but could use some help."
Do subscribers (*) get to see dupes in 1080i?
When one talks in support for Linux for any hardware, it is always important to note if sad software is Free Software or not.
/. readers, one should note that a proprietary driver is all but ilegal if functioning with a GPLed Kernel.
If not for ideological motives, which seen so secondary to most
-><- no
kill -9 JerrySpringer
when those irritating twats show up every morning.
Now if we get support for the HDTV outputs on the Radeon 9800, I will have the perfect DVR to go with my 61" HDTV!
/.ing...
Site's already slow....
Probably won't survive the
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
This is really interesting- I know I'll be buying one within a year or two, to go along with my wonderful new LCD screens and system. Linux-compatible from the ground up. Got RH 9 on it right now (Mandrake choked on it last time for some odd reason- never did figure that out)
...and mucho more HD space...no, not for pr0n, but for timeshifting the shows...let's see you beat that, RIAA. *Wonders if a lawsuit could ensue for people trying to timeshift, but not being able to...hmmmm....*
/. *Sigh*.
Now...just to find a cheap big lcd screen...
On a side note, out of 14 posts (when I first viewed page) only 1 was actually relevant. The sad status of
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
If I can't see the source code, it's not going on my system because of both ethical (buying binary only drivers encourages code hoarding) and security reasons. That's why I don't buy NVidia GFX cards and neither should you.
Both drivers and extensive patches to Xine are open source and already available.
I tell you, it's darn difficult watching things in standard definition once you've gotten used to Jennifer Gartner on Alias in her glorious 1920 by 1080 pixels with a full color gamut.
;-)
Timeshifting her is the hard part. For that, I've resorted to the MyHD card with its Windows drivers sitting on a system with an IDE-based RAID array. Yes, it works. But it's Windows. Need I say more to a Slashdot crowd?
But does anyone know what the status of v4l is in the 2.6 series? I went from 2.4.21 to 2.6.0-test3 (and now test4) as the HPT370 controller is iffy on Linux with APIC (this is an Epox EP-D3VA)... 2.6.0 completely solved all the APIC and SMP issues, but now V4L's not quite there. :-)
Ahh, the bleeding edge...
That's why I don't buy NVidia GFX cards and neither should you.
Open source software is crappy and never works. That's why I never use it and neither should you.
See how easy it is to make some crap up and then tell other prople what to do?
This is the first card specifically for HDTV, but:
For a while now, DVB cards have been available with software for Linux that have been able to recieve and process HDTV satalite signals. The 'other' PVR app that doesn't seem to catch on in the US is VDR, located at http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr This is a full featured, open source PVR application that does work with DVB cards to show HDTV.
Oh really? And just how is free software crappy? What particular software does not work? Huh? I thought so. You're just bashing the community because you missed the greatest revolution in computing since the invention of the microprocessor.
I suppose I could go without food for a few days. =-)
-- Up to no good and lovin' it!
Not every company is willing to open source all their software and make it free. If we want many of the commercial software companies to take Linux seriously, we have to convey the message that we find it acceptable to pay for some software that will run in Linux.
Until then, they will continue to develop only for OSes like Windows and MacOS.
Get a life, loser.
Thanks!
That's a pretty big "if".
I am not convinced at all that we need the commercial software companies so badly that we sell our ideals for it.
Gnome, emacs, sendmail......
Yes, that's the big downside of all these U.S.-based companies shipping as much of their production/labor overseas as they possibly can, all the while hoping to make big profits bringing back their products here to sell: Can you say "gutted consumer base?"
/.ing process.
Otherwise, I hope this company's product is more robust than their website which seems to have gone t.u. very, very early in the
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
http://www.pchdtv.com/faq.php#faq0000007
Isn't that a bit low for the average piece of hardware in a PC? I bought an ancient (used) ISA sound card for an even more ancient PC and I still got 180 days of warranty for it...
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
1. Users will continually update drivers and eventually absorb them into vareous Linux projects taking support off your hands permenently.
2. Free advertsing on Freshmeat as your drivers are announced then again as projects absorb your drivers.
3. Free adveritsing on Slashdot.
4. Slimmer marketshare means greater sales amoung Linux users.
Reasons to NOT provide offical Linux drivers
1. If your suffering on the Windows side a quick throw in to support Linux will not save you.
2. It'll piss off Microsoft.
3. Your website will be slashdotted.
4. There is a lose lose factor on your drivers. If your drivers are too good users may not improve them if they suck to much users won't buy your product.
Your best bet is to always supply unoffical drivers directly into open source projects so that users will always look to the open source projects for support and not you while at the same time the open source projects give you free advertsing and they get slashdotted not you.
I don't actually exist.
There have been digital TV cards with open source Linux support for years. This may be the first card for the ATSC standard and doesn't even have an MPEG decoder, or why would the need xine.
Do they support the Linux DVB API, or at least the parts that are common in ATSC and DVB?
Are the drivers open source?
For more information on linux and digital TV see
LinuxTV
Metzlerbros
and links on those sites.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
I've read a lot here about the possible recording limitations. Does this (slashdotted) company mean no more timeshifting problems?
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss
we have to convey the message that we find it acceptable to pay for some software that will run in Linux.
What you meant to say was:
We need to communicate that we are willing to give up our freedom and put up with binary crapware, just as long as we can use our leet new toys.
Some of us care more about freedom than HDTV. We need to encourage hardware companies to open their specs. Linux is not alone in the world as an alternative OS, and I sure as fuck hope that something better does come along some day. I don't think we want to be stuck emulating shifting Linux kernel interfaces to use some hardware on our shiny new EROS boxes ( yeah, right) in 2010.
I find that very acceptable. But you made a magic mistake.
driver!=software
I for one write just as OSS as proprietary (both for Linux). The only real need in being open is to be open to correct extent.
If drivers are proprietary and company goes to drain, your hardware goes with company too. Just look at older TV Tuners under XP. No drivers no fun. But if drivers are made as OSS someone might continue to support your hardware even then.
As far as I was talking about sotware needing to be open to the correct extent. Take two this as example.
Accounting software >> can be proprietary, the only thing that must be open are correctly documented tables and their relations.
Software for editing some type of file >> Make a complete specification of document type.
There are points that company must revise.
1. What will happen if they go down with their customers, I was there and to tell you the truth as a customer I didn't liked it. That's why I had to drag one machine running Win3.1 until a year ago, It was the only possibility to access documents that were made.
2. Let's take something more simple now. You're the one man band and you're administering servers on companies. You die in a car crash. Do customers have to break in to continue to work. Or would it be more simple to use an envelope, write password in and protect it to be used just in case.
As far as paying, my customers were paying me when I was making Win software, and they are paying me now. Where's the difference?
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
It is unfortunate and will always be a no win situation. Prices too high if they don't go overseas, bad PR if they do.
Show me an equivelent product that is made in the USA with Linux drivers and I'll buy it instead. (Assuming the price/performance is comparable)
-- Up to no good and lovin' it!
Your point?
I'm a core Freevo developer and I have something to say:
Recently we won an Epia and Hauppage PVR-250 and they will be better supported than others, just because we can test it.
If you like the idea and want to be supported, contact us via developers list (freevo: freevo-devel@lists.sourceforge.net)
Thanks, GustavoAgreed with both posts. The closer to the hardware, the more necessary openness is. But then what is freedom worth, when you can't use your shiny new toy?
If we want many of the commercial software companies to take Linux seriously, we have to convey the message that we find it acceptable to pay for some software that will run in Linux.
I'm willing to pay for software, just not when it's proprietary. I'll only play for Free Software.
Now if they'd fix their site to not throw javascript errors on every menu or flyover, I could have a look. You'd think they would at least test with IE6.
GOD, that's nice to see for once!!
Justin
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
Do any cards exist that can decode digital cable tv without having to go through the digital cable tv box? I'm not looking to get channels I'm not paying for. I just want a PVR that can act like my VCR did when I had analog cable. I used to be able to easily record shows on different channels. Tivo solves the problem by changing the channel on the Digital Cable TV box which isn't the optimal solution and prevents me from watching one show and recording another.
I'm willing to pay for software, just not when it's proprietary. I'll only play for Free Software.
Doesn't this funny sound strikes you?
Pay for free???
You probably meant Open Source;)
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Free as in speech software. Open Source is an entirely different thing.
Oh, please. Can you actually read source code?
I didn't think so. Next!
ethical (buying binary only drivers encourages code hoarding)
Bwaaahaha! That's a good one. "Code hoarding." Nice buzzphrase. Very good. Excellent. Way to subvert the English language to advance your fucked-up agenda.
In other news, exchanging goods encourages value hoarding, so remember to never conduct any transaction ever!
Just because they would deliver the source code with their product doesn't make it "Free", unless they specifically relinquish redistribution rights to the user of the software. That may or may not fit within their business model and is their choice to make. However, depriving the user of the source code is to maintain control over the user.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
1. used 'loose' instead of 'lose'
2. quoted a dirty hippy
3. misquoted a dirty hippy
Its not about selling your ideals, unless you're as fanatic as RMS and try to change the world no matter what.
For all other people, it's just about living together with people who have different ideals.
I have one of these and it is basically as
advertised. I use it to capture streams on Linux,
though I still play them back on my Windows-based
card which has component video support.
However, the xine patches work OK.
It is still a hacker's delight, though, and will
continue to be until all of the modifications
make it into the xine and v4l trees; and into at
least the Debian Unstable package system. The
software works, but takes some effort to get
installed and running.
I am quite satisfied with my purchase!!! Everyone
who supports Linux should buy one, if only to
support the business model.
Mark
So if I understand correctly this attitude.
One should write a software that's free. After that he hopes that there would be enough people making donations to put bread on the table.
I was controversing parent post about OSS or not. But in case of your attitude I actualy agree that parent had right and I was the one that was wrong.
It is a differece when someone provides distro like Redhat, than some coder writes a small software and hopes it will be seen enough to be appreciated so people would donate him some money.
After turning your opinion into reality:
Does job like a coder still exist. NO
1. No! They are not coders professionaly because they need other line of work to support themselves, they are called hobby-coders
2. Yes it does, but it's now called beggar
Fact1: Coder can't benefite of their work (other than being supported from users like you), they don't have the right that users have (just to use, not code anything and benefit from that).
Fact2: Red cross will support from now on coders too
I write just as OSS under GPL as closed source commercial (with full specs), and I appreciate GPL as far as it gets, but funny I can't find your point.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
You can download the contents of the CDROM from
their web site. It includes full GPL source for
the driver and Xine.
Research first, then post your inane complaints.
But hardware companies aren't selling software, they're selling hardware! The software is only provided to make the hardware work so people will buy it. And while an open source driver will be maintained and supported by the community, may be put in the vanilla tree, and will make the community like you, a closed source driver is a support nightmare, it's very difficult to deploy use, and it's only slightly better than nothing at all.
Litigious bastards
Some people timeshift MTV.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This is pretty neat, but it appears to fall short of being able to just capture the ATSC stream and play it back unmodified to the TV.
Not everyone needs mad power hardware or cards to decode the MPEG2 stream and output it. Some HD tuners, like those included in the Mitsubishi HD sets, have FireWire jacks that are capable of feeding the transport stream to something (typically a D-VHS deck) and accepting a transport stream back from a device.
Apple has released a sample application with their FireWire SDK for MacOS X called VirtualDVHS that I've been playing with. My notes on it are here. The FireWire enabled tuner does all the work, including sending start/stop commands to the device, and on Mits sets, timer recordings.
It's a great little program, and since it's a SDK, you get all the source code for it and the FireWire drivers. The TV's remote control works (commands sent via the FireWire interface) and here's the best part: it works on a dead slow stock CPU G3 266. This computer can't even play simple QuickTime movies properly, yet it works like a charm because all it does is capture and stream back the MPEG2 transport stream. The tuner's decoder does all the hard work.
Okay, so it isn't a PVR with nifty features and whatnot, nor will it work if you don't have a tuner with FireWire jacks. But I don't care too much about the PVR features for the moment because there isn't enough OTA HD programming yet. All I need it to do is time shift a few programs each week when I'll have to be at work, or busy with school, or whatnot.
VirtualDVHS may be a ghetto program, but it gives you a glimpse of what you can do with MPEG2 streams. No special ATSC cards required. And hey, you get the source: make it do more of what you want and tell people about it, or write your own.
this is my sig
Now I can *finally* add support for my ATSC datacasting product to Linux. If you're in San Diego (KPBS), Washington DC (WETA), Kentucky (KET), or Michigan (Station name escapes me), you should be able to pick up this emergency information / weather imaging data feed.
IP law confuses me. I am persuaded slashdot readers who read this sig now legally owe me 699$
Simply put, many people can't receieve a HD signal period. Where I live only one station is transmitting HD and they are 65 miles away, so no over-the-air (UHF).
Until the FCC requires full power DTV transmission along with must-carry on cable systems and a requirement to pass the highest definition signal available from a network the masses just don't have enough access to HD, period.
Just because they would deliver the source code with their product doesn't make it "Free", unless they specifically relinquish redistribution rights to the user of the software. That may or may not fit within their business model and is their choice to make. However, depriving the user of the source code is to maintain control over the user.
Except that with the source, anyone is free to create e.g. pre-rooted versions with ease. Think something like Windows with a hidden backdoor that'll bypass any software firewall? Post that to warez groups and claim the CRC change is because of the anti-activation stuff. Wouldn't even have to show up on a scanner - make it only open up to a "magic sequence" of rejected packets. Voila - you suddenly have the perfect backdoor.
Sure, the same could happen with Linux. But there it is a web of trust in force, official CRCs to check against. Nothing like that exists for closed source products, because the company itself is distributing it, noone else. Naturally, such trojaned versions be very bad for the parent company.
Not to mention stuff like ripping them off would be easier (copy-paste "programming" for closed source programs), as well as what various bad patches people could apply (with the source, people could make small binary patches for other people). "KaZaA b005t3r! Make your downloads 100% faster" which is really a backdoor etc.
Another thing, is that those companies could end up in lots of legal battles (copyrights, patented algorithms etc.) that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. Even things that have a clean bill of health could draw legal attention, as with the latest SCOs malloc antics.
So I see very real reasons for closed source companies not to release their code. In the world where everybody plays nice it'd be fine, but as it is I'd call it a very poor business decision.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Yes, all the drivers and applications from this company are 100% open source. They provide the drivers only in source form, with easy instructions on how to build them. All the software is a available for download on their web site with no form of registration, purchase, etc. (it's all GPL'd code).
As for the Nvidia cards, that's a different issue.. Those cards are recommended because Nvidia has provided Linux drivers that implement the XvMC API for MPEG2 acceleration. This makes it feasible to do Hi-Def video on a reasonable processor.
ATI also has this capability in their Radeon hardware. But, they will not provide Linux drivers that enable this capability.
Also, on the other project listed there, to reverse engineer the Teralogic cards, ATI has refused to give ANY help/specs/API's/drivers for the NXT2000 ATSC demodulator on some of those cards. So, they are not exactly Linux-friendly either.
Enthuisum == Flamebait?
Why not fork?
pinnacle never released any video editing cards.
the closest thing I have seen in a video editing card is the AVID daughter card that has a Pentium chip on it for doing Title rendering on the fly.
Otherwise nothing exists like you talk about.
NOBODY ever made a video editing card. they make capture cards, encoder cards, decoder cards, and daughter-processing cards. NEVER has there ever been a video editing card.
I'll bet you run Linux 9.0 too!
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Pre-orders have begun for the pcHDTV HD-2000 card and the cards will start to ship this week. Several lucky people who have contacted me (or pcHDTV) already have the card and have been enjoying HDTV on Linux. My part is HDTV/Linux that I have been working on support for the card in MythTV for the last month, but due to my very busy schedule all features are not complete (seeking and handling low HDTV signals). I invite anyone who is interested in HDTV and MythTV to come by #mythtv on the freenode irc network and talk with me (bbeattie). The largest problem right now is obtaining a HDTV program schedule as xmltv does not provide this.
Also, I have written a Linux HTPC how-to that talks about the card and other Linux HTPC like issues at www.sllug.org/how-to/linux-htpc/introduction.html . It will be very useful for anyone wanting to do HDTV or HTPC like features with Linux.
HDTV tuners are expensive. A quick look at Buy.com finds them listing for $400-$800. This card is only $190, and since it's integrated with a PC, turning it into a PVR is just a matter of software. Perhaps HDTV tuners will be the killer app that puts PCs in the entertainment center.
vi is my shepard, I shall not font.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
xine and mplayer have more than once traded code. I expect some crazy fool will take those patches and cram it into mplayer CVS at some point in the next month.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Doh. Several European cards have the QAM love going. Why can't a North American card? Heck. I'd buy a card that supported QAM if I had to buy a Mac with it!
There's a thread on AVS Forum about using DVHS VCR's in Linux. It doesn't support D-Theater, so prerecorded shows won't work, but you can use the tools for transferring to/from a DVHS deck, Firewire-enabled tuner, or other MPEG2 TS over 1394 device.
A solution to the problem with music today
> Not every company is willing to open source all their software and
> make it free.
I'm down with that. They can be as closed as they want, it is a free country. But if they want me to BUY their hardware they have to do it on my terms. And my terms are Free/Open source drivers. I will NOT buy closed hardware again. Been there, done that and have the lousy t-shirt. Never again.
However I will buy closed source software. Provided it isn't important and has little longterm value.... i.e. games. Closed software mixed with a Free OS is a timebomb. It bitrots very quickly. I had hell getting VMWare 2 running on RH7.2 and it broke again when I went to 7.3 and I still haven't had the time to get it running again. Needless to say I don't depend on VMWare. It won't be much longer before it just doesn't work at all, probably when the 2.6 kernel becomes standard. And I'm not just picking on VMWare, any closed app suffers the same fate eventually. With a game it usually doesn't matter since I will have moved on to the next shiny toy.
Democrat delenda est
Hello, I'm the developer of that TL880 driver linked to in the story. It would be really nice if everyone who owns such a card (MyHD, HiPix, WinTV-HD, AccessDTV) came on over and subscribed to the mailing list, and played with some of the software for a few minutes. The latest effort is to map the card's registers. A preliminary map that has nearly every register listed, but only detailed descriptions for enough registers to get the card displaying color bars, is located here. Also, as -tji mentioned in another post, ATI's set top box division is unwilling to provide any help to anyone not buying a minimum $25000 annual volume. So, if everyone who owns such a card could e-mail their card's manufacturer (i.e. Hauppauge, Telemann, MIT), as suggested on the How To Help page, asking them to try to arrange for help with the I2C-connected chips on the card, it would be great.
Thanks.
As for the PCHDTV, I just ordered an upgrade for my sytem from an Athlon XP1800+ to 2600+ with 333MHz FSB, and a Geforce FX 5200 for motion compensation, and I'll probably be ordering the PCHDTV soon. The useful parts of the code for the TL880 driver are the Oren VSB demodulator interface and the modified tuner.c which includes support for the dual input Philips NTSC/ATSC tuner. It's really annoying that the tuner and msp3400 modules in the kernel only attach to bttv drivers, rather than providing a generic interface that any new driver can hook to.
A solution to the problem with music today
Unless, say, your FTP server gets rooted, you don't notice for MONTHS, and nobody ever notices.
I seriously doubt that having the code open does anything, in real and actual terms, to improve security or prevent trojans. If anything, all it serves to do is let you track things down after the fact. But I doubt that any appreciable number of OSS users give a serious audit to any code they download.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
This maybe the first ATSC HD receiver card on the market, but that doesn't make it the first HD :)
:)
Australia uses the European DVB-T digital standard, and there are *many* so-called 'budget' DVB-T cards on the market which don't have a hardware MPEG decoder - they cost around $A200 (say around $US120) They let you dump the whole DVB transport stream into (say) mplayer, letting you watch HD, SD, or listen to audio-only channels, provided that the host machine is fast enough to handle it. You can also stream it to a faster machine across the network, in which case even a crappy slow box is an adequate TV receiver. Ironically the deluxe cards with on-board MPEG can only do standard definition digital
In Australia we have a variety of HD content available now, at a variety of resolutions including 1080i.
For many reasons, DVB-T is a much better system (COFDM as opposed to dodgy 8-VSB with horrendously complex equalisers).
There have been DVB-T PC receivers for a while now, and recently cards have been shipping with HDTV support. I recently reviewed one of the first to hit Australia (since that is one of the VERY few countries outside the US that broadcasts digital HDTV).
BTW, She does not have a T in her name. (Garner)
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Given that the CSI DVD releases are 4:3 (and a shitty low-bitrate MPEG encoding job to boot), the ONLY way to watch CSI is in its full HD glory.
Yes, CSI is originally filmed in widescreen, and the HDTV film transfer broadcast by CBS (Well, at least on WCBS-DT out of New York City) is absolutely amazing. The DVDs can't even come close to touching it.
So yes, there is some good HD programming on TV. My MyHD card was worth it just for the drool factor of CSI in HD alone...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Since MPEG video uses a YUV colorspace which usually contains only one "color" pixel for every four or so "real" pixels. (Luminance is a 1:1 mapping, chrominance is usually 4:1 or so), the bandwidth needed for a 1920x1080i signal is reduced.
It is further reduced with many video cards that perform the IDCT and motion compensation in the video card and not on the host CPU.
That said, with an AGP vid card, even without hardware MoComp and IDCT, a P4-2.5 can (just barely) decode 1080i in realtime. With a card that does hardware IDCT and MoComp (NVidia is basically the only choice for this under Linux, due to deficiencies in ATI's drivers.), the CPU required is even less.
In short: This particular HD solution displays directly to your video card. No passthrough or other hardware tricks needed.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I don't know enough about this, but this looks like a great place to ask :-)
Will this support PAL (or whatever standard used at europe.. ) ?
Thanks.
(Insightful? Sheesh!)
Unlimited growth == Cancer.