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HDTV Reception Now Available on Linux

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the build-your-own-pvr dept.

-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."

4 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Outstanding! by YetAnotherName · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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? ;-)

    1. Re:Outstanding! by steve_bryan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Since Alias is on ABC doesn't that make it 1280 x 720? Still plenty of Garner pixels but they are all honest progressively scanned pixels. What may surprise many is how good even 480i and 480p programming is compared to NTSC. The local FOX affiliate was showing episodes of Fastlane in upconverted 720p widescreen (presumably from 480p source) and the picture was amazing (not as good as real 720p or 1080i if you did a screen capture, but still remarkable).

      If you enjoy any program on OTA (over the air) TV this sort of product will enhance it immensely. I don't know for sure that this board supports it (the site is properly slashdotted) but the other significant enhancement is 5.1 surround sound. Let's not forget the other advantage is that the programming involves no monthly bill and with the right software it can be recorded to your hard disk (about 9 gig per hour).

  2. 90 day warranty? by Torp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  3. Digital Cable Card by TornSheetMetal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.