Cross-Platform Video Capture Cards And TV Tuners?

ePIsOdEOnline writes "This Christmas reminded me of the times when you were a child and your parents bought that new toy that says on the packaging "Batteries Not Included". Post-Christmas rituals always turn into spending sprees to get other things that will be compatible and complementary to the gifts we recieved. This past Christmas, I recieved a PS2 along with a mini-dv camera set. Well, now I'll need something to view these with since I don't have a television in my apartment. So, I was looking into picking up a TV-tuner card for my computer. What kind of cards has the slashdot crowd been successful with, and which ones should I steer clear of? I'd like to be able to use the card in linux and sometimes windows, to watch and record off of. What kinds of software/hardware should I invest in, and is it an easy, accomplishable task to delve into?"

Comments

Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[cepler]

Includes hardware MPEG encoder/decoder.

http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr250_datash ee t.htm

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Lussarn]

These cards are good. I'm using a PVR-250 myself with Linux. The quality is the best I have seen in any analog consumer card (they totaly kick bt878 cards butt). It is very good. Linux drivers are good to.

The newest avidemux make this card 100% easy for cutting unwanted commersial from what I record. Higly recommended.

Linux drivers

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[MikeXpop]

I doubt these would be good for him. Perhaps if he wanted to record TV, but all he wants to do is watch it.

I would recommend he get something cheaper.

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

> I doubt these would be good for him. Perhaps if he wanted to record TV, but all he wants to do is watch it.

From the question: "I'd like to be able to use the card in linux and sometimes windows, to watch and record off of."

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Hauppauge should clean this up first, before anyone buys anything from them.....

http://www.busybox.net/shame.html

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI

encoding is in hardware

decoding in software

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Lussarn]

The PVR-350 has hardware decoder too.

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[0x1337]

They are - please read the website links you post nextime. Ok? Thnx...

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Keebler71]

what an amazing coincidence... I am just about to pull the trigger on one of these but I can't decide which to buy, the 250 or the 350. I know the 350 has a hardware decoder as well. How important is this? Someone else mentions a 2% load on the CPU for the 350, anyone have any idea how much of a load the 250 places on the CPU? I plan on using if for timeshifting..thanks!

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

What a stupid reply. The 21st century is going to be filled with more technology coming to the computers, such as TVs. He's past you in technology clearly, maybe you should enter the 21st century!

Re:Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience Hauppauge customer support is as good as non-existent. I won't be buying any of their products in the future.

In case you were wondering, I have a WinTV card (PCI card with TV and FM radio). The Hauppauage VfW drivers simply don't work after hibernating Win2000, and the WDM drivers produce the Blue Screen of Death on my system. Hauppauge has simply ignored my queries. I eventually went to the free Bt848 drivers from sourceforge and the ChrisTV application. Problem solved, no thanks to Hauppauge!

Googled

[JediDan]

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/12 6250
Crito says
"brooktree/conexant chip based cards are supported by the bttv driver, ATI cards by the gatos driver, nvidia cards by the, uh, i forget, but there a driver for their framegrabber chip too. Problem with bttv is not all tuners are supported, so don't bet it'll work with any 878 card. There's a file called "cardlist" that comes with bttv that'll give you specific models it detects. Also, check the card manufacturer's website for hardware incompatibilities. My Hauppauge card has problems with some SiS, VIA and ALi chipset mobos, for example, but works great with the bttv driver otherwise."

Re:Googled

[Lord Kano]

I have a brooktree card with a temic tuner, it is near impossible to find a Win XP driver that will work with it. As a result, my GF gave me an ATI TV Wonder VE card for xmas.

The software is pretty good. It will download your local cable TV listings and you can schedule recordings based upon your local content provider.

LK

Re:Googled

[ultrapenguin]

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net
is the generic windows driver for 848/878 cards.
Works just fine.

Or a new monitor

[puffing_billy69]

You're bound to be able to find one that's compatible with a MiniDV cam and svideo from the playstation.

I _still_ use an old Commodore 1084S as a monitor for my video machine. Has separate Y/C inputs, component RGB and two handy built in speakers as well.

Surely there's something with as many options still made today?

Re:Or a new monitor

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great, but RGB is not component.

Re:Or a new monitor

[puffing_billy69]

Is that right?

Since you didn't bother to tell me what it is I'll continue to carry on in my ways for now.

Since you remain anonymous, your comment also stands little chance of making it to my .sig

Re:Or a new monitor

[Anonymous Coward]

(Not the same AC) "Component Video" usually refers to the Y/Pr/Pb connections on many DVD players and modern TVs.

I used to use a Commie 1084, but retired it in favor of a Sony GVM-1311 (actually 1411). It's a 13" Trinitron that does progressive NTSC, has 2 Y/C inputs, a RGB input, even can do SVGA up to 1024x768. The picture blows away the famous Commodores. It was semi-popular back in the day as a monitor for Amiga toaster systems.

Re:Or a new monitor

[ajs318]

Here in Europe {where PAL reigns supreme}, Y/Pr/Pb aka YUV component video is rarely used. Most European TV sets have at least one SCART socket. SCART is a 21-pin connector which can carry RGB or composite video and audio, logic-level switching signals and enough returns to shield everything. Most TVs have the first SCART socket {AV1} fully wired, and the second {AV2} wired for composite only {VCRs don't do RGB}. The neat part is that in RGB mode, the pin that would normally be used for the composite picture signal is used for the timing signal, but of course the timing information is all in the negative-going portions. So an appliance such as a Playstation or DVD player will put out a full composite video signal on the "timing" output and RGB on the main RGB outputs. Remember I said the SCART connector has switching pins; pin 8 selects from the internal off-air receiver or from the SCART socket, and pin 16 selects composite or RGB. If the TV input supports RGB, then it will respond to the logic 1 on pin 16 and use the RGB signal, taking the timing from the composite signal. If the input is composite-only, then it will totally ignore pin 16 and display the composite picture signal, which will be the same albeit a little fuzzier. Of course on a small screen of say 35cm., the composite fuzz will be less noticeable anyway.

I don't know why anyone would prefer YUV over RGB, as the latter is more like what the CRT expects. It's easy enough to change between the two, assuming you have ideal op-amps :-) I guess it must just be an NTSC vs PAL thing.

Re:Or a new monitor

[robhancock]

I believe one big reason for YPbPr (which I believe is not actually quite the same as YUV) being used instead of RGB is that Macrovision copy protection can't really be used on RGB, and the movie studios wouldn't want high-quality DVD player outputs with no Macrovision on them, as worthless as it is..

Re:Or a new monitor

[Anonymous Coward]

> I guess it must just be an NTSC vs PAL thing.

I think it's actually a HDTV thing. (random google: http://www.intechlabs.com/ourfaqs/tv/digital/rgb_y prpb.htm)

It's unfortunate tho -- RGB would make it much easier to make computer-compatilble television monitors (such as the aformetioned Sony).

Re:Or a new monitor

[ajs318]

I thought U and V were just other names for the colour-difference components R-Y and B-Y, but I couldn't remember which was red and which was blue, so I cheated and failed to mention it. Like pronouncing "Samhain" as "'kel-tik nyoo 'yee-ah". Anyway, according to my understanding, Y = 0.3 * R + 0.6 * G + 0.1 * B, and the red and blue differences are R-Y and B-Y. So you can easily recreate R and B with two op-amps, R = (R-Y) + Y and B = (B-Y) + Y, but to get G you have to fartarse around ..... G = (Y - 0.3 * R - 0.1 * B) * 1.667. The nasty multiplying factors are to compensate for the human eye's response, which makes green light appear brighter than red and blue light appear dimmer than red for the same actual amount of energy. Using Y = 0.3 * R + 0.6 * G + 0.1 * B means you can feed a mono CRT from just Y and get a sane-looking picture ..... so the fancy circuitry to regenerate the red, green and blue grid drives for a colour CRT goes only into colour sets {remember, colour TV predates the integrated circuit so when I say "an op-amp" remember that must be built up using at least 3 triodes or transistors} and colour signals degrade gracefully on mono sets.

As for the thing about Macrovision .......... shit! You've got to be kidding, right?

For one thing, it's so easily defeated as not to be a serious threat to anything {it makes it slightly awkward to copy from VHS to VHS, because you need a sync regenerator; they are legally available because some older composite monitors are allergic to Macrovision, and before sync regenerators could be banned, the movie studios would have to pay to replace everyone's incompatible equipment and arrange for it to be recycled in an environmentally-friendly manner. It's cheaper just to let people have Macrovision strippers^W^Wsync regenerators.}

As for connectors, does US kit not have SCART sockets, or is the wiring of a US SCART socket different from a European one? If not SCART, what does your all-in-one connector look like?

Re:Or a new monitor

[puffing_billy69]

>I don't know why anyone would prefer YUV over RGB, as the latter is more like what the CRT expects. It's easy enough to change between the two, assuming you have ideal op-amps :-) I guess it must just be an NTSC vs PAL thing.

Thank you, I was waiting for someone to mention SCART and RGB. Here's why. YUV came about during the transition from black and white sets to colour sets. At that time, only the luminance (Y) needed by the B&W sets was being broadcast. If we were to stop that we would break the B&W sets.

So Luminance was still broadcast, and two colour difference signals (U and V in PAL) were added. B&W sets can carry on using Y, and colour sets can use all three to make an RGB image.

Here's the nifty bit: You can increase/decrease colour saturation simply by amplifying the U and V signals, this would be much harder in RGB.

Also, YUV should compress better

Re:Or a new monitor

[puffing_billy69]

>As for the thing about Macrovision .......... shit! You've got to be kidding, right?

He's not kidding, and he's actually right as well. I just checked it out in "Video Demystified, a Handbook for the Digital Engineer" by Keith Jack (good book too).

It involves skewing the odd colourburst signal, attenuating sync pulse heights and throwing in extra sync pulses around the place to upset analog VTR'r. Since RGB doesn't have a colour burst, half of the process won't apply.

Re:Or a new monitor

[puffing_billy69]

There must be hundreds of reasons YUV is and always will be preferred over RGB, here's the main ones.

• Independent Luminance Signal
• Easy to manipulate colour phase independent of anything else
• Can sample luminance four times (for example) more often than chrominance
• Therefore will compress better
• Backward compatible with mono sets
• YUV is stored on DVD, not RGB
• Much more suited for broadcast transmission (Y/U/V -> Y/C -> composite) easier than RGB -> composite

Re:Or a new monitor

[ajs318]

It isn't that hard to remove the Macrovision. You're right, it adds out-of-range pulses during the "invisible" parts of the picture signal which throw off the VCR's automatic gain control circuitry {a TV receiver can get away with a much longer time constant on its AGC as there is no need to avoid overloading a tape head}.

A conventional lowpass filter will not work because it will attenuate the high frequencies in the picture, ruining sharp edges. Unless, as the parent points out, the sync signal has only timing information on it ..... or at least only the timing matters and there is no AGC .....

Now, assuming that the VCR's motor has a nice heavy flywheel and the tape speed is thus good and constant, you can work out where the sync pulses should go and substitute a nice, clean, locally-generated version of whatever the sync pulse should have looked like. Early attempts to do this in the analogue domain seem to have been supplanted by microcontrolled circuits, now PICs have broken the 10MHz barrier.

But the whole idea that the movie industry could insist that TV manufacturers use a connection system which is technically inferior to the best merely in order to allow for an easily-defeated copy prevention scheme acknowledged to do more harm than good, frankly beggars belief.

Re:Or a new monitor

[ajs318]

For broadcasting and storage, I would agree with you -- you can get away with less bandwidth on the colour signals than the picture signal because the human eye has fewer colour sensors than brightness sensors, and the Y component is suitable for feeding direct into a mono CRT. But for digital applications, I would have thought it better to do the YUV-RGB transform entirely in the digital domain {it's just a straightforward matrix multiplication after all}, and output the red, green and blue signals straight from the DAC to the set.

As I pointed out, this is already done in Europe - the SCART connector carries RGB and a separate timing signal which just happens to include picture and colour information.

Re:Or a new monitor

[robhancock]

I figured out what I was meaning to say there - on NTSC the correct term is actually not YUV but YIQ, apparently the color vector axis is different from YUV used on PAL. And apparently YPbPr is different in that YUV/YIQ is amplitude-limited to stay within the analog PAL/NTSC specs, while YPbPr is not. Apparently there are some differences between YPbPr and YCbCr as well, but those terms are often used interchangeably.

As far as connectors, North American gear has nothing like SCART. YPbPr component video is typically connected with 3 separate RCA plugs.

Avoid Hauppage like the plague.

[Anonymous Coward]

The drivers suck, the software locks up constantly, you must change your BIOS settings to accomdate the card (and lose functionality in everything else). We could never get two different cards from them to work on multiple systems.

Get something from Pinnacle.

Re:Avoid Hauppage like the plague.

[QuaZar666]

I have the same card. I had problems with the drivers when i first got it and had to wait for updated drivers to fix my video problems. the Hauppage Software is horrible but there are some 3rd party programs that work with the pvr250/350 now. When it works correctly it works very well but I have found that it only works well when using 3rd party software.

Qua

Leadtek Winfast

[tourettes]

I purchased a Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP Deluxe tv tuner, and I enjoyed it alot. It is not as expensive as other tuners available on the market, but works for all my needs. It has a stylish and easy to use remote control, as well as an FM tuner built in.

I have written a TV Tuner Guide for linux that focuses mainly on this tuner (but can be used for most tuners under linux.

For the price, and the quality you get, in my opinion, this is one of the best tv tuners out there.

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this guy, the Leadtek Winfast comes with a good remote, works with MythTV and Freevo without any problems, and it is way better than the ATI TV Wonder card I had before. It is very cheap (like $50) and is in stereo (which is something that most cheap cards don't do), so go buy it. NOW.

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[Anonymous Coward]

I will also second this, with two caveats.

First, the PVR software in Windows seemed to have issues when I turned closed-captioning on: something that looked not unlike maxing out the brightness and tint settings on a TV set. This happened with the latest release of the software (which was a year or two old at the time IIRC) under Windows 2000 with a nVidia Ti4200.

Second, recording under Linux (2.4; haven't yet tried 2.6) seemed prone to aggravating skips in the output that don't occur under Windows. The problem is related to sound -- if I record without skipping doesn't happen. I've heard this isn't so much an issue with any particular card as it is with scheduling/latency issues within the kernel, and I've experienced the problems under a variety of conditions (using btaudio to pull sound directly from the TV card, ALSA from the two cards in the system, OSS from one of the cards) and with a HDD/CPU/Memory configuration that can in theory and fact (under a different OS) handle the bandwidth requirements. But part of the fun for me is tracking things like this down, so long as I'm not relying on it for anything important.

Neither condition has really hampered my enjoyment of the card, although you may prefer one that can do hardware encoding as suggested elsewhere if you want to record and do other stuff at the same time. I tend to encode directly through 1-pass xvid so I'm not sure how much a hardware encoder would save me.

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[tourettes]

With regards to the PVR software under Windows, I have never experienced this with closed captioning enabled. Like yourself, i'm running Windows 2000 with a ti4200 card. Must be a freak thing.

I haven't experienced many audio problems while recording, however, I'm running Gentoo with a patched kernel for preemptive kernel. What software are you using to capture? Most, if not all, of my capturing is done using Mythtv, and it is pretty flawless IMO.

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried Mythtv, and had things configured for a while to automatically run it out to the television with remote input and using one of the two sound cards in my system so that I could use it mostly independently of what I was doing on the system. But now I tend to use MPlayer, partly because I can go to single-user mode and record without involving X, partly because I like the fine degree of control.

Both have problems with skipping frames. This is most noticable on our (U.S.) news channels, all of which now constantly scroll news tickers across the bottom of the screen. These 'jump' when watching the channel on Mythtv or recording with MPlayer, so I've been using them as a convenient benchmark of the problem.

I'm currently running Gentoo using vanilla-sources kernel 2.4.22 with Andrew Morton's low latency patch applied, although I've previously used gentoo-sources and other vanilla-sources with some combination of low latency and preemptive patches applied while testing.

I use ReiserFS for everyday operations, but have set up an ext2 partition on a separate drive for testing. I should note I haven't/can't set things up with only ext2 at this point, but think that is another variable that could make a difference.

My ReiserFS partitions are on an IDE drive using UDMA133. The ext2 partitions are on an IDE drive using UDMA100. The system's under load so I can't give useful hdparm benchmarks, but I've used a variety of codecs to shift the load between HDD bandwidth and CPU power (AthlonXP 2000+) without appreciable difference in the skipping. Recording without sound eliminates skipping. I've tried the various methods of obtaining a sound stream and recording using both lame and straight PCM without effect on the problem.

I put tinkering with the TV card on the back burner about six months ago, and upped the system from 256MB to 1GB of memory since then, so I'll set aside another night to see if a new kernel/MPlayer/Mythtv will change matters.

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[AlaskanUnderachiever]

Nice referal in the link ;)

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[deaddeng]

The Leadtek TV2000XP Deluxe is a great tuner card, and for $48 from newegg.com (with free standard US shipping), it costs rougly 1/3 of what the Hauppauge PVR 250 costs. The tuner works well under linux.

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[NetNinja]

I have a question. Would it be possible for the card to have world band capability?

Since I know nothing about radios I am going to asume that you need some extra components to get this to work?

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unlikely you'd be able to easily patch this to do what you want -- its radio capability is limited to FM, and world band transmissions are amplitude modulated (like AM but in a different section of the spectrum).

I've heard they make world band cards, but it might be cheaper and offer better results to buy a good remote-controlled shortwave radio, feed it into a sound card, and get a piece of hardware that lets you send remote-control signals from the computer. I have a feeling a good radio will tune better than a card, especially since you can get it farther away from sources of interference like the computer monitor.

Re:Leadtek Winfast

[Anonymous Coward]

My Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP Deluxe card has worked great under windows XP. Supports recording in many video formats and very fast, stable, high quality.

PVR 250/350

[rask22]

Under linux you really can't beat the hauppauge PVR 250 or 350. Both include hardware mpeg2 encoding, the 350 includes hardware mpeg2 decoding. You can find drivers at ivtv.sf.net. It's nice to record tv shows at 640x480 at 2% cpu load.

The card is also well supported by mythtv.

Re:PVR 250/350

[ldspartan]

Yes yes yes, yes yes.

I've had a multitude of video capture boards and dongles, and ivtv based stuff is by far the best. (An AverMedia M179 in my case).

And mythtv is awesome :)

--
lds

Re:PVR 250/350

[ShadeARG]

Link to Hauppauge PVRs here.

Re:PVR 250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

Sally, is that you?

Re:PVR 250/350

[bustersnyvel]

I've added this card to my whishlist (it's my birthday in april) and my girlfriend likes the card already. That must mean something ;-) Thanx for pointing it out!

Re:PVR 250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

The PVR 350 and ivtv is great stuff. I'm using a couple of homebrewed scripts and programs to use it, so there's no overhead from things like X. I can record a stream at 2.2 Mbps and have it playing back at the same time with no problems.

This is on an 8 year old Pentium 133 running Linux 2.4.22 with 32 MB of RAM. Hardware MPEG is the only way to go. I used to do this in software on a much faster box, and it was a pain in the ass.

The ivtv programs obviously reflect a Unix mindset. After you set the parameters with an ioctl program, recording is as simple as "cat /dev/video0 > foo.mpg".

Re:PVR 250/350

[SpoddySpice]

Actually, although supported by ivtv I do not imagine either of the Hauppauge PVR 250 or 350 would be suitable for the PS2 due to the noticable latency (2 seconds) produced by the hardware mpeg encoding.

I do have a PVR 350 and even the included notes from Hauppauge state this is not suitable for consoles.

Re:PVR 250/350

[paganizer]

I've had (and still have an old Fast Movie Machine Pro (ISA, 1994)) that won't quit; TV/video on screen and captures 320x240 at 20fps, which is pretty awesome for 1994 tech.
My main card is a Matrox Marvel-200; this is a AGPx2 card, does decent with games, and captures 720x480 at 30fps with absolutely no problems, in Win98 and Mandrake, and with a little work, in Win2k.
It will also listen in on close captioning for keywords and start recording when it hears one, do recording by a schedule, etc.
If it was more than a 16mb card, I never would have gotten a Geforce2, but morrowind just wouldn't play.

Re:PVR 250/350

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098635/

+0.5 Funny...

Re:PVR 250/350

[Lord of the Wazz]

the 350 includes hardware mpeg2 decoding.

I've got a 350, and as far as I'm aware it can only do hardware decoding when you're using the TV-out on the card. It can't use the hardware decoding if you're displaying the images on your monitor. A very worthwhile card to have though.

Broktree 8x8 based

[gspr]

I own a Pinnacle Studio PCTV (BT848 based). I'm very happy with it, although it doesn't support very high resolution capture (max is 384x288 or so). The viewing software from Pinnacle for Windows is nice, and BT8x8 based cards (at least 848) are supported in Linux 2.4.x up.
In general, from what I've heard, BT8x8 based cards are cheap, reliable, of decent quality, and widely supported.

Re:Broktree 8x8 based

[rask22]

The problem with bt8x8 based cards under linux is that while the basic chipsets and tuners are supported most manufacturers use slighly different configurations. Then they refuse to release the changes that were made, thoroughly borking the btvideo module. For example, getting btaudio (audio over the pci bus instead of the line out of the card) working is virtually impossible on most cards.

Re:Broktree 8x8 based

[gspr]

Well, btaudio really isn't a problem, if you've got a line-in to spare. But I see your point.

Re:Broktree 8x8 based

[K8Fan]

Get a Brooktree chipset card, and download dScaler and be knocked out at the quality. I've been through half a dozen different cards, and I'm currently using a I/O Magic PC-PVR card. Virtually every one of these cards uses the same reference design, and the only variation is how well they handle the signal path and grounding. I know how clean this card is because I'm using it to capture at 720 x 480 and scale up to 1280 x 720 using dScaler's amazing deinterlacing. Then I show it on my 90" wide screen.

Re:Broktree 8x8 based

[bobbabemagnet]

I second this. I have had a Hauppage WinTV card for over 3 years now and have had no problems in windows or linux. The card is probably really cheap now due to its age and newer products, but it is really good. I hooked up a vcr and playstation 2 with no problems at all. Also, it comes with a remote control that can be completely reprogrammed to do anything (for a while I set it to control my winamp).

As for dScaler, it is my program of choice for tv. It scales everything amazingly well, there are enough customizations to make it darn near make your coffee for you, and it's really simple to use.

Re:Broktree 8x8 based

[jelle]

I read that tvtime uses many of the same algorithms that dscaler uses.

Re:Broktree 8x8 based

[K8Fan]

I read that tvtime uses many of the same algorithms that dscaler uses.

I'd say so, based on the screenshots, especially the bottom image capture. They'd be foolish not to anyway; the dScaler filters are excellent and very well tested by a very active and vocal user base.

crossplatform = external box

[sakusha]

Why does it need to be a card? I use the Canopus ADVC-1000 external FireWire DV converter for video captures, it will work on anything with a FW port.
There are quite a few TV Tuner external boxes, but most of them are based on USB, which doesn't have sufficient bandwidth to do DV, so most of them use proprietary codecs with much lower bandwidth use (and lower quality). If you just want to make VCDs, they're probably fine, but all the USB tuners are of insufficient quality to do DVD quality storage. Of course, most of what you grab off the air or cable/DirecTV isn't DVD quality either, it's already been compressed more than the ~6:1 that DV uses.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[bonehead]

Plus, if he goes with an external Firewire tuner, he can use one of the spare ports on his Firewire card to import from the camcorder (zero quality loss).

If he's careful, he'll end up with a solution that not only works under Windows and Linux, but would be moveable to a Mac if he ever decided to make that switch.

Since cross platform compatibility was a major concern for the OP, I'd say PCI cards should be ruled out from the start.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Can it do both ways simultaneously? That would be nifty for PVR use, the only downside being a non-integrated tuner.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[gl4ss]

the only problem with them(external usb tv tuners) being that they suck.

and tend to use properiaty stuff for transferring the picture..

there should be literally shitloads of old bt* cards supported by the bttv around though, several of which are from companies that have dropped the support 4-5+ years ago on windows side(but that still work as good as ever, with svideo in & etc, but some of them were made by companies that don't even have websites or even existed outside of that one product based around some reference bt-chip card and drivers).

though, it sounds to me like his wishing two things: firewire port for the dv camera and some crappy enough card to get picture out of the ps2.

however, what he could do is that he could buy a fw card for the dv and a so called VGA BOX for the playstation2(liksang has several models for example).

tv cards are handy i must say though,
i occasionally need to run some dreamcast games through my (now quite old)hauppauge, as my tv can't handle 60hz :(, but the pc will output anything(almost at least) and the tv card will take in anything(pal/ntsc/60hz/50hz and manipulate too).

Re:crossplatform = external box

[kalidasa]

Not simultaneously. It has a switch on the front panel for digital>analog / analog>digital . Personally, I use the tuner on my VCR. Results are pretty good, though obviously (given the tuner) not maximum quality.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[bhtooefr]

Offtopic, but is there a cheap reverse VGA box? For watching (say) DVDs on the TV, from the PC? Also, if he has a laptop, a PCI card (or VGA box) is out of the question.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[captaineo]

I second the recommendation of a DV bridge. Make sure to get one with locked audio (e.g. ADVC-100). Most "TV in" cards have serious audio sync problems because they do not lock the sample rate of the audio to the incmoing video frame rate.

I assume the 1000 is a typo, the ADVC-1000 is a professional high-end product ($2000), the ADVC-100 is the consumer model ($200-$300).

Re:crossplatform = external box

[eliasjssssss]

I'm one the (wannabe?) developers of the drivers for Hauppage USB TV-Tuner cards and many other cards using the NT1003/NT1004 chipset for linux which is commonly called the usbvision-driver (and here).

The state of the project is that very recently the propereriarty compression-scheme used to get the full-screen framerate through the usb-port, has been reverse-engineered (many creds to Joerg and Dwaine), is in development but is reported to work. I've been using the driver on a small screen in non-compression-mode for some time (with only some minor kernel panics).

When it comes to portability I am AKAI the only one who made this driver work under anything but x86. After a lot of tweaking I have the radio-part of the driver working on my linux powerpc with the same stability as under linux x86. The TV-tuning is more difficult because of the reverse byteorder and that the code is written with only one byteorder in mind. For that reason I've only made the sound for the TV work together with the ascii-graphics with the frontend aatv which I really couldn't confirm was correct. I beleve the best way to get the driver to work properly on ppc I will somehow have to tweak mplayer to do the conversion... Which wount be easy.

So in my experience, I'm sorry to say that the portability for the linux-drivers for usb tv-cards is, despite the great efforts on the driver stability of Dwaine, not quite there yet.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[sakusha]

Oops, you're correct, I have the ADVC-100, not the 1000. I didn't even know there was such a device as the 1000.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[hendridm]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the AVDC1k doesn't have a TV tuner, does it? I thought it just had capture ports. Additionally, the MSRP on the web site says $2199. Even if street price was 50% lower, that's still quite hefty. I couldn't find any street prices, even after clicking on several of their "Where to Buy" links. :(

Re:crossplatform = external box

[Anonymous Coward]

can you fucking read? he said to get A FIREWIRE BOX.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[sakusha]

No, you're not wrong, but you didn't bother to read back in the thread, or else you would know that I mistyped and meant the ADVC-100 (note HUNDRED) not the ADVC-1000. The ADVC100 only cost me $299 when it was brand new and not discounted yet. You can get a TV tuner for about $5, look for the brand name "generic cheapshit garage sale VCR."

Anyway, I got to thinking more about the original question. Some digital camcorders have NTSC or SVideo inputs, and can transcode regular video and output it as DV through their FireWire ports. Most of the really miniature models don't have this feature because there's no room for the plugs in such a small unit. But I know this feature was available in the Sony TRV900, but that model's discontinued. The DV transcode feature is probably in similar new models, it might even be in this guy's camcorder, but he didn't say which one he had so I can't tell. He might already have everything he needs.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[gl4ss]

yeh there's those, been for a good while too.

even with analog wireless combined.. for quite cheap.

Re:crossplatform = external box

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sorry for not checking for YOUR fuckup. Asshole.

bt878

[WWWAvenger]

I've had a ot of luck using the drivers for Brooktree 878 chipset based capture cards on FreeBSD and Linux.

Re:bt878

[puffing_billy69]

Yay Brooktree!

Documentation wide open and available - hit google to see what I mean, all of their chips have PDF's there for the taking, and on many of them a PCI interface is built into the actualy chip.

There's seems no doubt to me that Brooktree chips will always be well supported under Linux systems, they are so ubiquitous and well documented.

Windows

[Doomrat]

For people trying to get a strange video card working with a later Windows OS such as 2000 and XP, these generic drivers are life savers.

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/
http://www.iulabs.com/drv/index.shtml

Re:Windows

[acidrain69]

Parent is Spot-on.

I got a generic BT848 card with an RCA video in and a 5V DC output on it. No vendor name. The little camera that came with it says US Robotics, but there is nothing about this card/camera combo on their site. The Linux 848 drivers worked well (once I figured out that it ran in NTSC Japanese format), but for the longest time I could only use it in Linux. The btwincap drivers work under win2k.

Re:Windows

[Lord Kano]

You sir are a scholar and a gentleman. I'd like to purchase an evening with an escort for you. I've been looking for something like these drivers for no less than two years.

Try Goodwill or Salvation Army

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find a reasonable TV set for $15 at the local thrift shop. Make things easy on yourself.

Re:Try Goodwill or Salvation Army

[Dagowolf]

I am, first off, happy as can be to see this post, as I am working on the same thing for much the same reason, SPACE!

Dorm rooms and apartments are the devil to have a big boxy TV in. You have this monster, let's take the first 20" TV I saw on the Best Buy website, it has a 437 in^2 footprint. That doesn't sound like much, but in a small apartment that's HUGE!

So, if you can limit it to one giant box and run everything through it, you are saving major space. Even better if you end up being able to afford a wall mountable flat screen.

Re:Try Goodwill or Salvation Army

[agent2]

A real TV? Who would have thought!

Re:Try Goodwill or Salvation Army

[AaronGTurner]

If space is at a premium then using an existing display system (your PC) makes sense. Or alternatively if you want to do DVR it makes sense to have a capture card.

Re:Certainly anti-american

[tourettes]

You need to go create a blog or something, cause this post has nothing to do with the topic.

why not get a tv?

[Nihynjahs]

dude just go get a freaking tv they are dirt cheaop and alot less hassle than a tv tuner card and stuff. but if you think you need to go all out with your tv and everything and build a linux dvr and all, i think your nuts if you have been abke to live without tv that long you could just wait awhile im surei mean you can get nice trv's the are like 20 some inches that will play games and watch the news for 150 bucks whereas a tv tuner and all is expensive. i have a tv tuner card with my playstatiojn hooked up to it and it really isnt that great.

Re:why not get a tv?

[puffing_billy69]

Yeah, I pretty much agree. Some of the cards I've seen listed here have a pretty crappy max res, it's not like you'd want to pipe your playstation or watch your DV rushes through that, which is why I suggested a monitor of some sorts with more input options a little bit up the thread.

One day, when I can afford it, I'm going to get a projector with component, svideo, dv etc inputs and some nifty video switcher to take care of everything. So far I've got the big white wall.

Re:why not get a tv?

[shepd]

Dude... there's not one, but TWO shift keys on your keyboard. And then there's a third shifter -- Caps Lock. TRY THEM OUT! :-)

That being said, I'd rather watch TV on my computer for the convenience of it. Also, it's cheaper on electricity if you're already using the computer.

>i have a tv tuner card with my playstatiojn hooked up to it and it really isnt that great.

You really just need to try dscaler.

There's other software as well, but it just doesn't come to mind right now.

Re:why not get a tv?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude... there's not one, but TWO shift keys on your keyboard. And then there's a third shifter -- Caps Lock. TRY THEM OUT! :-)

Dude, shut the hell up. It's better than people who type in all caps. I'll take all lowercase to that -any day of the year-.

Re:why not get a tv?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Dude, shut the hell up

Dude, look it up. Are some ACs just sad or what?

Re:why not get a tv?

[orangepeel]

...and some nifty video switcher to take care of everything.

I don't have one of these yet, but I've wanted to get one for ages to try with some nifty projects. Their original ASEL model now has an optional rack-mountable case.

TV card

[kawabago]

I have an ATI All-In-Wonder 7500 and it's a wonder it works at all. The gatos drivers are difficult to get working. XFree86 only supports it with 4.3.1. The dvd playback is marginal at best in Windows and I've never tried under linux. In short, I think you should consider just buying a tv set. It will be cheaper and better.

Re:PC is the way to go.

[AntiGenX]

Sorry to interject off topic here, but I feel this needs clarification. Macs are VERY capable video editing stations on the cheap. (Sure you can argue the hardware is more expensive.. blah blah blah, but if you want editting cpaabilities, you need horsepower. Also note, the movie Cold Mountain was edited on a Mac) If it's software that's a concern here, check out the open source stuff that will compile nicely on OS X. Now try and do the same on a Windows box... Sorry guy Cygwin won't cut it for that.

As for my suggestion to the questioner. Get what you're comfortable with, the ATI ALL-IN-WONDER cards are nice, and from what I understand *most* are supported under Linux. (How hard is it to do video overlays in X?)

PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[Doc Ruby]

Why not use the PS2 Linux distribution? The Linux1394 project offers strong support for FireWire, especially DV gear. You could use your gifts to get your video on the TV, with Open Source editing tools. Along the way, you'll get your PS2 on the network, and much more portable gear in the PS2 formfactor. And you'll support the OSS FW and DV communities with your feedback.

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[atrader42]

Because he doesn't have a TV. The point is to avoid getting one, and instead to have a ps2 and video displayed on his monitor.

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[Doc Ruby]

Depending on which monitor he has, it might work with PS2 Linux. He could get a KVM switch. Of course, a PS2 into a TVin card would be really cool, especially with a digital AV switch on the Linux PC, feeding from PS2, DV, cable, etc, and feeding to monitor, PS2, DV, and various TVs. That's why I'm reading this story's discussion.

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[mattwolfewvu]

As far as I know, no one has gotten the FireWire port on the PS2 working. The base distro from Sony doesn't support it.

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[Mattsson]

Wasn't the question "How to I hook this up to my pc, since I have no TV?"?
The ps2-linux kit is a great expansion for the ps2, but it wouldn't solve his problem.

I think he's on the wrong track, wanting to connect his ps2 via a tv-tuner, though.
The DV-camera is no problem, just get a firewireport in the computer and you're there...
Or you could get the ps2-linux kit and use the fw-port in the ps2, but that would probably be more expensive.
But the ps2 really should be connected directly to the monitor with one of those ps2->vga adapters.
Then you'll get really good videoquality for the games, etc.
Going through a tv-tuner and then to the monitor will be a *major* setback in quality...

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[Doc Ruby]

Sounds like a DIY challenge to Slashdotters, and the reverse engineers they love.

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[Doc Ruby]

If you're not a geek, Anonymous Coward, then you don't matter - not in Slashdot howto forums. Post your anti-intellectual venom somewhere that it will resonate, like up your ass.

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[bhtooefr]

The PS2 Linux kit is a BITCH to get working on a TV - you have to press all sorts of "cheat codes" (at least they're public) to be passed to the kernel, and it'll go into TV mode, and then you have to muck about with XFree86 config files to get IT to output to the TV. So, it'll be going to a monitor. The only problem is that no games support the monitor cable - they need the TV cable...

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[archivis]

If you are smart you will hook it up with the monitor cable, thus being able to play the games...and if you want to use the ps2-linux stuff, you run Xvnc...voila, high resolution desktop via your ethernet card!

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[bhtooefr]

The only problem is that no games support the monitor cable - they need the TV cable...

Read this again...

Re:PS2 + Linux + MiniDV = home AV

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just run Windows or MacOS X if you want to do DV?

Because not all of us like the idea of spending $200 for a string of ones and zeroes.

Also, without the joy of hacking stuff like this, what would there be to live for?

I'm kinda interested in this for myself

[JimE G]

I've got a laptop, so I don't have PCI options, and I don't like the limited resolution that USB entails. I'm kinda looking at this.

http://www.iodata.jp/prod/multimedia/tv/2003/gv-13 94tvm/

That is, as soon as I can get it translated.

Re:I'm kinda interested in this for myself

[Oculus Habent]

Here's what you are looking for. However, it is not available on their store.

My Pick

[w3weasel]

The Hauppauge pvr 250/350 are the most commonly cited cards for use with mythTV/Freevo, and they are said to work well with Windows as well.

Personally, my christmas present to myself this year was a media PC (well, the parts for one). I went with the ATI 9600 AIW Pro, which offers very good gaming under windows, a good PVR package for windows, and can work with Freevo and MythTV (although setup will be much harder than with a Hauppauge).

The AIW 9600 just offered so much flexibility at an affordable price... had to go with it.

Re:My Pick

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to interject here, but, one thing everyone who recommends the Hauppauge cards fails to remember. I have the PVR250, and I do love it, but, it *WILL NOT WORK FOR VIDEO GAME MACHINES*. The reason is simple...it's delayed about 1.5-2 seconds, which for a video game is an eternity. This is due to the mpeg2 encoding that it uses and there's nothing you can do about it. I personally use my AIW 9700 Pro for game consoles. Don't get me wrong, the PVR cards are GREAT and the quality is exceptional, but, the delay will kill you in a video game.

Re:My Pick

[tzanger]

MythTV can handle the ATI cards? Every time I asked about it I got some very chilly responses basically saying not to piss around with it and just get a PVR250/350.

I like the AIW

[Utopia]

There are several good TV Tuners in the market today. However the good hardware is not accomanied by good software.
ATI All-in-wonder is a pretty decent tuner card with a good sofware suite.
Unless you are getting a Microsoft Media Center PC don't even consider hauppauge cards.
Internal cards are better than external cards.
TV recording requires lot of bandwidth which USB or serial ports can't provide.

Also, check out some the comments in neowin.net

Re:I like the AIW

[compwizrd]

Indeed, still trying to get my ASUS 9600XT/TVD to work with the ATI multimedia center, claims it can't find the tv components. Oddly enough, windows Media Encoder works fine, and the enclosed ASUS tv tuner software works, but without close captioning(rather important for someone deaf like me)

Tried to email ASUS tech support about it, and their mail system bounced the email because their mail system is misconfigured and won't accept the redirect they use to a real account.

ATI wants 2.99 a minute or something similar to talk to them, I'll put up with it not working properly for now.

Re:I like the AIW

[Platupous]

I also rely on the closed captioning, as I am nearly deaf.

I have found that the ATI 7500 has met my needs for simple live TV playing, for about 2 years now. the MMC 7.X / 8.X suite by ATI is stll very buggy, and it frequently bungles the captioning (Never Clears the text, those of u who use CC know what I mean), and the recording isnt up to par. The DVD option is obtuse and never works right consistantly, I usually end up using my PS2 to play dvds instead of the ATI DVD player.

I think that ATI's software suite is consistantly rated well, but I am not happy with it. I really wish we could get some good software reccomendations that work well on Windows 2k/XP pro.

Re:I like the AIW

[Utopia]

I understand your pain. Soem TV stations don't encode CC properly. CNN being the worst offender.

Windows Media Center is the best TV software I have ever used (and I have used so many differenet ones). No other software comes even close to it.

Had it not been for the cost (you have to buy a brand new PC or get a MSDN subscription) I would have hwhole heartedly recommended Windows Media Center over ATI cards.
ATI is still the best option for people with small budgets.

Re:I like the AIW

[parkanoid]

Huh? The poster clearly asked for cross-platform solutions, with a heavy emphasis on linux. As far as I know, ATI does not provide a version of their software suite for linux.
Hauppauge cards are supported by a variety of linux PVR software, as well as various commerical programs under windows. Microsoft Media Center???

Further, most modern external PVRs use a firewire interface, and not USB or serial (yes, I am aware that technically many standards fall under 'serial', but I think it's reasonable to assume that parent meant good old RS232 COM ports. Why would anyone use that for video transfer is beyond me).

Re:I like the AIW

[compwizrd]

Someone gave me some url's for a few programs, but most were just for watching tv itself, none of them actually supported the close captioning.

even found one that plugged into winamp(it didn't support the ATI chip though)

Re:I like the AIW

[Platinum Dragon]

As far as I know, ATI does not provide a version of their software suite for linux.

Correct.

However, these folks work on drivers that service the ATI video capture hardware, and links to software.

I have a 4MB All-in-Wonder, the granddaddy of them all[0]. Works fine, though the XFree86 4.3.0 version of their drivers don't seem to support TV antialiasing without an XVideo port available, which in my particular case means making sure the IRQ jumper on my card is set to enable. Previous versions of the drivers didn't rely on /dev/video0 existing, so this means one extra step for me and my ancient (but working!) card. I haven't gone into the case to do this yet, so the frames aren't properly drawn (or, more specifically, each frame seems to be drawn too quickly--not fun with fast horizontal movement), but I intend to this evening. Wish me luck.

Re:I like the AIW

[benzapp]

I don't know if you have checked ATI's website lately, but MMC 8.8 just came out and it is very good. All the bugs that I experienced in the past are gone.

It also has a cool feature where it can dynamically compress and broadcast TV to other computers on your network. So, if you have an AIW card in one computer, any other computers that have an ATI card can also watch TV. Check out anandtech for more info on this very cool feature.

One caveat, I am using a AIW 9700 Pro, things may work differently for you with an older card...

I also do know that the latest DVD decrypting software is not released for the 7500, you have to have an original MMC 8.x disc to install it. You may want to consider purchasing that cd from ATI, or purchasing an AIW 8500 or higher card, which comes with the MMC 8.x disc. The DVD software really works great these days.

Re:I like the AIW

[Platupous]

I am on it, Yeah. Writing the above is what inspired, wait . . . no, resigned me to downloading the whole suite and imstalling it all over again, since like version 1 of all of this software.

That being said, I find it infuriating that I have to wait for each new driver/upgrade in hopes that this rev will create a working product.

Re:I like the AIW

[Sancho]

ATI drivers really, really suck, if only for the fact that you have to install them in a precise order from a clean install to get them working.

Here is what a few friends (with AiWs) found out:

1) Uninstall everything ATI on your system.
2) Install the Catalyst video drivers. Do not reboot.
3) Install the Video Driver separate from MMC. Reboot.
4) Install the BDE drivers (first link on the MMC download page). Reboot.
5) (optional) install the DVD drivers.
6) Install the Multimedia Center software. Reboot.

If this doesn't work, wipe clean again and reverse steps 2 and 3 (sometimes they work in the opposite order, sometimes not.)

It's really absurd. Windows users are used to having to reboot a lot, but up to 5 times is a lot just to install one set of drivers/software from the SAME COMPANY. ATI should damned well have a unified driver+MMC software that actually works (there is a single driver on the website--never worked when I installed it).

Cleaning your ATI install and using the CD that came with your AiW is another option. Of course, you don't get the newest drivers, and when I upgraded from a CD install, it broke everything.

Oh, and someone mentioned MMC8.8. I tried it, and it flat out wouldn't display video in the TV app, even after going through all the hoops to get generic video capture working. I said "Screw it," and went back to MMC8.7, and even without all the hoops that time, it worked fine.

Clickable link

[fastidious edward]

Click me!

I have a lower range Hauppage product which I had trouble finding Linux drivers for (and Hauppauge were very uncooperative)... make sure your system will work with anything Hauppauge or make sure you have a very reliably backup option.

Re:Clickable link

[pantherace]

ivtv.sourceforge.net

or for most other cards (bt878 or bt848) BTTV (included in the linux kernel)

Re:Clickable link

[Afrosheen]

Also I suggest you guys dig around on the hardware lists at freevo.org. People list what they're running and the success they're having with it. The WinTV Pvr 250 from Hauppauge seems to be really popular. Hardware mpeg en/decoding and linux support along with a low price add up to a winner.

DV

[Anonymous Coward]

cameras usually have firewire... you probably will get the best picture quality by grabbing the raw DV.

Re:PC is the way to go.

[TheWanderingHermit]

check out the open source stuff that will compile nicely on OS X

There's some open source stuff out there, but if you're looking for anything for editing -- and you want to do editing that looks good, with a fade in and fade out, and want frame accuracy, you're S.O.L. There's some stuff out there, but a lot of it is not as good as it claims to be, or is hard to work with (Cinelerra), or only works with one file format (Cinelerra), or isn't supported and development seems to have stopped (Jahshaka), or is in very early stages of development (KDEnliven), or is only for simple stuff (like editing out commercials).

My limited experience

[stangbat]

I have had good luck with my ATI TV Wonder VE. Beware that this version of the card is not stereo, but is usually fairly cheap. Mandrake configured it during install with no problems since release 9.0. There were problems with it in WinXP, but those seem to be fixed (update from MS that can be found on Windows Update). It has also worked fine under Win98SE. I successfully installed and configured a Hauppage card on my dad's WinXP box, but I don't have many comments about it as I haven't used it extensively.

Re:My limited experience

[toast0]

Since he just wants to hook up the ps2, i doubt he's going to go through the trouble of getting a coax adapter for it, when it comes with the rca output plug.

The TV Wonder VE also lacks the ability to access the sound from it's pci bus too (you have to plug it into line in), but that's not relevant here either.

Re:My limited experience

[Lord Kano]

Beware that this version of the card is not stereo, but is usually fairly cheap.

The card does not have a Stereo TV tuner, but if you are connected to a composite source, you will get stereo.

Re:My limited experience

[Keighvin]

I picked up the ATI TV Wonder VE 3 years ago for about $60. I've been able to use it with just an old pair of rabit-ears in an earth-shielded basement for all of my broadcast reception with wonderful clarity (despite the fact that tuner cards, including this one, call for a boosted signal source from an external amplifier/scrubber). If you're also working with video output devices to route in you can run sound through your other hardware instead of relying on the monophonic limitations of the card itself.

I had it work flawlessly in Linux, BeOS, and Windows 98SE; 2K was not supported for the brief stint I attempted - this may have changed (though regardless I'd recommend against the default software it came with - I doubt they've made huge improvements in that arena).

This card does not have independent radio tuning support, if you're looking to pick up standard FM stations you're sunk.

Re:My limited experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Composite !=stereo...

Composite = video. Yes, usually if you're using a composite cable to hook up video, you're using "stereo" hookups, but not necessarily (see NES...)

Re:My limited experience

[Lord Kano]

Composite = video. Yes, usually if you're using a composite cable to hook up video, you're using "stereo" hookups, but not necessarily (see NES...)

If you use the composite input for video, it would follow that you'd use the composite input for audio. The card comes with a stereo mini plug to RCA adapter.

It plug into the "sound in" on your sound card. You would get stereo input if you were using it.

LK

Re:Certainly anti-american

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he could go watch Galaxy Quest, an excellent film where scifi geeks are portrayed as heroes!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Go Trinitron

[rduke15]

A second hand old Sony Trinitron TV would probably be cheaper than a video card. And a lot less hassle choosing, installing, getting drivers, configuring, ...

It will also probably give you a bigger image than your computer monitor, and a much better picture if your monitor is a flat panel display.

Unless the space the TV would take up is a problem where you live, it's probably your best bet.

And if you want to edit the stuff you shoot with your DV, you need at least one more monitor anyway, to see what you are doing.

Well, now that I have written that last sentence, I see a problem: If you shoot DV, you will want to shoot it 16:9, because it's a nicer format. But a second hand 16:9 Sony Trinitron will be hard to find for cheap...

Re:Go Trinitron

[Anonymous Coward]

please note the capture req. in the orginal post

Re:Go Trinitron

[rduke15]

please note the capture req. in the orginal post

I ignored that part on purpose. Capturing from the DV is done through Firewire.
Recording TV? He doesn't even have a TV, so he may not really be interested in recording it.

Re:Go Trinitron

[phxhawke]

You don't need Firewire to capture video.

Re:Go Trinitron

[Anonymous Coward]

a lack of a TV doesn't mean a lack of input to capture... he may have cable

ATI Radeon All in wonder

[jeffskyrunner]

I have the 8500 DV and i run my gamecube through it. It is not HDtv quality, but it is better then having to fit a tv into my tiny dorm room :) Plus, it has people turning their heads seeing me play my gamecube on my computer. Of course, the newest ATI Radeon All in wonder probably costs around 400-500 bucks....so go for an older one

Re:ATI Radeon All in wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the 8500 DV and i run my gamecube through it. It is not HDtv quality

What I would do is get a VGA adapter for the Gamecube (or whatever console) and run it directly to the monitor. A KVM might help with this if your monitor doesn't have dual inputs. I used to use my AIW for playing games, but now I have my Dreamcast connected directly to my monitor and it looks very nice.

Nearly completely orthogonal...

[jafo]

I find it kind of hard to imagine playing the Playstation on a computer display.

Back in the late <gasp> '80s, I bought a 27" Sony TV, and declared that I wasn't going to do anything but replace broken video gear until HDTV came out. 15 years later, I've finally broken down and replaced the (still functional) altar to the entertainment gods.

Nearly a year ago, we finally fell to the temptation of getting a projector. The thing that finally made this happen was the InFocus X1. This is a Not only is the price of the projector quite reasonable, the operating cost is down from $1 per hour (many projectors have $300 bulbs that last around 300 hours) to under $0.10 per hour (the X1 bulb is still around $300, but it lasts 10 times as long).

So, while it's not a TV tuner card, I just had to provide some feedback. We love the projector, it doesn't take up much space, it's easily portable, it makes a 45" TV seem small.

That said, I've heard good things about the Haupage tuner cards using the Brooktree chipset. I haven't tried any of them in over 5 years, so they've surely changed. However, they seemed to work great using Video 4 Linux drivers.

Sean

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[Mike Buddha]

I find it kind of hard to imagine playing the Playstation on a computer display.

I play my PS2 through an ATI All-In-Wonder card. It's fine.

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[karnal]

Since we're sort of offtopic, what are you using for a screen? What distance are you using for how many diagonal inches??

Want to get a good idea of how one will look. It's on my budget for the upcoming year....

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[jafo]

I have a friend that does A/V for a local hotel, and gave me a screen. They had a whole pile of them that had various defects that they wanted to get rid of, and we were able to locate one that didn't have any problems in the viewable area. They're fairly huge screens. We're considering getting a new screen one of these days, but this does a great job.

Other friends of mine who got projectors after we did (we kind of started a trend here) are just projecting on the wall. We were considering just painting a flat white square on the wall, but the free screen put an end to that.

I think we're projecting it at around 60", but I'm thinking about moving it back some. This size works well for viewing during the day and the night (we don't have curtains on a few windows, so we don't have as much control of lighting as would be ideal). We always leave it at the "fully expanded" setting for zoom, so I think we'd be fine to move it back another 2 to 4 feet, but that would require re-cabling and moving the ceiling mount... So, I haven't done it yet...

Sean

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[ender's_shadow]

i thought projectors were bad with video consoles - something about the refresh i think

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[mojoNYC]

check out ebay to find a boatload of new/used screens--we got a 72" wide screen for a little over $100 (we have a sony projector, and it fills the screen from 9-10 feet away)

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[Fnkmaster]

We used to play Dreamcast at work on a decent DLP projector all the time. The quality was absolutely amazing, and it was projected onto a 5'x5' (roughly) screen in a big conference room (no windows or extraneous light source), with a subwoofer and sound system we'd cart in. We'd also sometimes watch movies on it after work. Honestly, the experience was vastly superior to most home TV setups.

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[Wirenut]

The Infocus x1 rocks - I guess I'm an "edger" as I've been using a ceiling mounted projector in my home for over 3+ years. The X1 this month replaced an aging Lightware VP800, which was "ok" when I bought it, but can't hold a lumen to the new one.

I use a Day-Lite 100" roll-up screen and have about a 97" diagonal image which is just beautiful. The unit is ceiling mounted ~14 feet from the screen and requires very little keystone correction. The X1 is also very quiet and works great in the dark. It look better than good in moderate light like a lamp or Christmas tree, and is acceptable in presentation mode in flourescent lighting.

Basically the picture and colors are beautiful and the unit is cheap.

It's a great compromise for anyone who can't afford the space a regular tv takes up - in fact find me any other way to get a 100+" HD-ready TV that can be hidden in 1 minute, or taken to a friends, etc. And this is for under $1500 inclulding a screen. I've seen the unit as cheap as $899 through CDW or Dell, though I bought it direct from Infocus for $999. The ceiling mount is $150, though I bet most creative slashdoters will be able to make one out of a junk auto celluar phone mount as I did - $20 of parts for the old one with $7 upgrade for the new one.

And of course playing console or PC games is a whole new world - fighting life-sized monsters will give yo nightmares.

Here's a pic of the setup:
http://bwill.net/files/new_proj.jpg
Visib le cables are because I was able to move the ceiling mount back about 18", which requires

PS - I agree that this guy is gonna waste a lot of time to do something a $100 tv would fix. If space is an issue, and he's got money to burn, he should buy a flat-panel monitor with video inputs.

Re:Nearly completely orthogonal...

[mabhatter654]

Sounds like a good plan...after all, he has the DV camera for any video capture tasks...most have analoge inputs anyway...all he really needs to do is watch his stuff on a screen! we're making this way too hard! A projector would make PS2 gaming against a flat white wall sweet, as well as provide cool features for your PC to use as well.

The other alternatives would be to get one of the TV to monitor boxes [about $125]that take composite or S-video and splice them into your monitor [all he seems to want right now] or he could just plunk down for a nice 27" for less than $300 this week on after christmas sales! Just be sure to pick one with all the bells...PIP, Svideo in, etc. and you could use it with the PC for movies and such.

An upgrade to an AIW or even a TVwonder VE would be good too, depending on what vid card he has...he didn't say...but ATI's tuner works pretty well for watching video [it's got at feature to just watch tv] in on older models...

All that said, he might just have all he needs right now! Just patch the PS2 into the DVcam and use the DV bundled software to "watch" the PS2 input on the computer...it's worth a try anyway!

The short answer.

[Raven42rac]

Hauppauge PVR/250/350 for Windows/Linux.
Elgato's EyeTv for Mac OS X.

Re:The short answer.

[dan_bethe]

I'd like to know if either the EyeTV or USB 1.1 WinTV work on Linux on PowerPC. I've been scouring the earth via google and can only find more questions. Are the WinTV drivers endian safe?

Thanks :}

Re:The short answer.

[Raven42rac]

Hate to state the obvious answer, but did you try both companies' websites? The answer is maybe, Sourceforge would probably be your best bet to find crossplatform drivers.

Re:The short answer.

[gdarklighter]

I wouldn't hook a PS2 up to an EyeTV.

Re:The short answer.

[Raven42rac]

On that note, neither would I. Here is a better solution. I know several people who swear by that switchbox. It is a 50$, driver-independent magic bullet for this guy's problem.

TV tuner for ... what?

[nomso]

I would not recommend a TV tuner for anything other than watching TV.

Your DV camera should have a digital output (IEEE 1394 (FireWire)) - use that. Additionally, if that DV camera is a nicer one it may have video input; meaning that you can connect your PS2 to your camera, which is connected your computer, which is connected to your display.... you may not need to buy anything?

Re:TV tuner for ... what?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Is there an app that just displays the incomming dv stream?

I've been using a Philips SAA713x chip based tuner card with dScaler to good results. I would avoid the tuner portion for anything other than OTA or the old RF out game systems.

About the best one can get with analog short of pro gear is a Holo3DGraph card, which is pretty darn nice and includes a Faroudja deinterlacer. Sadly, I don't think there is any Linux support for it. Plug a good set-top DVD player into it, the results on video-based DVDs are far better than one can get with DVD software. While film-based DVDs look great with DVD decoder software, using software for video based DVDs sucks because the chumps that make DVD software don't bother with deinterlacing, they just have comb or blur modes.

Re:TV tuner for ... what?

[iethree]

i have an asus tv tuner, it's not pristine quality, but it was easy to install. I've hooked my gamecube up to it and it works fine. It records really well in mpeg 1/2 without taking up too much of my system resources. I don't know how it'll run under linux though.

PS2 + Video Capture, might want to think about it.

[WasterDave]

I know the video capture card sounds like a more "complete" solution, but you might want to think twice about hooking a PS2 up to it.

For a start I imagine there are some significant latency issues associated with video capture which, while fine for watching telly, might be a bit of a problem for playing games.

Secondly, as this is more subtle, almost all the point of a PS2 is that it is devoid of hassle. Open door, put disk in, close door and you're there. Having to make sure the PC is on, you've got the capture application working properly, and (in the case of Linux) doing whatever X11 voodoo shit that needs to be done is just not the point of having a playstation.

Sony sell a really nice 14" flatscreen TV. Maybe get one?

Dave

not a tv tuner card, but a switchbox

[RestiffBard]

Viewsonic makes a very nice one that I use. Plug monitor into box, box into computer, ps2/gamecube/xbox into box, switch with handy remote. I've never been happy with the resolution on tv tunder cards. if you're dead set on one anything from wintv is fine I suppose. Viewsonic VB50HRTV

Re:not a tv tuner card, but a switchbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I have one of these too and I swear by it now. Best thing about it is I can bring it with me and my gamecube when I go to college friends (who usually don't have a TV just a computer) and play it on a monitor. I also like the resolution and picture crispness that you get from a monitor. I have satellite, gamecube, and computer all hooked into mine.

All You Need

[idfubar]

(0) Card with Bt8xx chipset
(1) If you're using windoze, load the open-source WDM drivers found on the Bt8xx WDM Video Aquisition Driver website (you can use these drivers with any Bt8xx based card). Most *nix distributions have built-in support for the chipset.
(2) Use another open-souce marvel, DScaler, for TV-viewing. They've added some really nice filters that increase the quality beyond what you typically find with the in-box software that comes with most cards.
(3) A nice Windoze-only solution is the AverTV card (comes with a remote)!

Re:All You Need

[Anonymous Coward]

AverTV cards work wonderfully in linux! (bt878 based)

You should go with the Hauppauge...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but apparently you should also avoid the Hauppauge like the plague so I guess that means ATI, but ATI doesn't play ogg.

Re:Hauppauge WinTV

[eyeball]

I got a Hauppauge WinTV with fm radio back in 1999 and i've been using it ever since. I love it. I've used it in windows, linux, and beos. I've never had any problems. I've recommended them to friends and they all love them too.

Seconded. I don't remember exactly which Hauppauge card I got (it's been around 3 years, and I since gave it to someone to experiment with), but I think it was the WinTV-D (with digital TV reception, which I never tried). I too used it under windows (using the player and playing with the windows streaming media server), linux, and beos with 100% stability and no problems. (I think I might've dabbled in *BSD as well, but I can't remember). It's a Brooktree 848 chipset, which looks pretty well supported in the opensource community.

Re:PC is the way to go (WRONG!).

[rduke15]

PC for creating a video. Nothing is better

That is definitely wrong.

There are only 2 (serious) editing programs: Avid and Final Cut Pro.

Avid runs on PC and Mac. Final Cut Pro only runs on Mac so Apple can sell the hardware (they bought the project from Macromedia, killed the Windows version and made the Mac version into Final Cut Pro).

While I'm not a Mac fan, video editing is certainly the area in which a Mac is perfectly suitable for the job. Besides, since Apple's interest is in selling hardware, FCP can easily be copied. That is not the case with Avid which needs a hardware dongle.

What about a monitor? VGA Box?

[aetherspoon]

I play on my PS2 and N64 on my monitor, personally. My 17" LCD monitor has a built in TV tuner, including a bunch of fun little ports for me to plug things into. It has Picture in Picture as well, so I can play in a window or in full screen.

VGA Boxes add a similar functionality to any monitor (well, anything using a standard VGA cable). They set you back more than a TV Tuner does, but you won't have any lag problems or even need to turn on the PC first! Doesn't matter about the PC OS... you get the idea.

I can try to help with that....

[atrader42]

I'd be happy to try for a rough tranlation if anyone can tell me how to get linux to display kanji in mozilla. The hiragana is fine, but the kanji aren't right. Any help?

Re:I can try to help with that....

[bhtooefr]

How about this: http://www.iodata.com/usa/products/products.php?ca t=GRPH&sc=VID-CAP&pId=GV-1394TV

You may already have everything you need

[Rolman]

If you only want to play PS2 you may not need anything else but cables and a Firewire card. I have a laptop, a DV camera and I'm a frequent traveler. I also tend to take my Gamecube with me to play some PSO (I take my GBA too, for those wondering).

Sometimes in hotels the TVs don't have the means to connect a game console, so I just connect the GC to the camera, then to the IEEE1394/Firewire/iLink and watch the video on the laptop thanks to the great Video IN -> DV Out feature of this camera (I have used three different models of Sony Handycam with this feature, DCR-PC5, PC101 and PC330), and the quality is very high (720x480@24Mbps, 12/16 bit audio). The output can also be captured and encoded in real time either using Windows (Premiere or Studio) or Linux (dvgrab, Kino).

Unfortunately, there are some minor issues. First there is some small latency on the video conversion that could be annoying in some fast-paced games (fighting games are definitely affected), and I'm sure this is the case with a lot of Video Capture hardware. The second issue is that it doesn't have a tuner.

For me, those issues are not a problem because I mostly play PSO (an online action RPG with very mild latency requirements, but even Mario Kart is very much playable, only Soul Calibur II has given me trouble so far) and I stay in hotels, so there's no need for a TV Tuner either.

Of course, YMMV =)

Re:You may already have everything you need

[ResQuad]

Finally!! Someone with a good idea. Pah for spending more money on things you dont need!!! Use what ya got. McGyver it!

Re:PS2 + Video Capture, might want to think about

[atrader42]

For a start I imagine there are some significant latency issues associated with video capture which, while fine for watching telly, might be a bit of a problem for playing games.

Actually, I frequently use my playstation on my ATI All-in-Wonder 8500 and have no such latency. I would just look out for good deals on capture cards if you're concerned about space. That said, I've never tried this under linux, though now I'm curious. I'll report back.

ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro

[ayden]

The AIW 9700 Pro card should be significantly cheaper than the 9800 Pro since it's about 1.5 generations behind ATI's current product set. Last I remember, ATI was providing Linux binary-only divers for the 9700 Pro which enabled accelerated video. The Gatos project enables the TV tuner on these ATI cards.

I'm currently on my third AIW card, the AIW 9800 Pro, and I'm not sure I'd want to use anything else.

BTW, you don't need a TV tuner card to use your PS2 with your computer monitor. You can get a PS2 to VGA cable and plug it directly into your monitor.

Re:ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro

[toast0]

since you can get a cheapie tuner card for $50, and that costs $80, i'd go with the tuner card.

if the console supported vga natively, then it'd be another story (dreamcast vga boxes are about $20, cause the console will output 640x480 vga if you ask it nicely)

Re:ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro

[AsnFkr]

Ever come across anything like the PS2 to VGA cable for Gamecube? I did a quick google search and came up dry.

Re:ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

just plug the damn RCA cables into the input block of the AIW, open TV, change source to composite and walaa, game on your monitor, no boxes needed. The quality is plenty fine for gaming, the console just needs comp. cables which dreamcast comes with anyways as do most other systems such as the gamecube.

Re:ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro

[toast0]

check on ebay, they make them for that too... they typically are just upscan convertors... it'd be cheaper to get a $50 tv card and use that

Re:ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro

[neonlight543]

I was looking at getting one of these. I'm glad to see that you can get the TV tuner working under linux. What about the composite video input and the dual monitor thing (hydravision I think). Have you got these working under Linux??? Thx

Re:ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro

[Ruie]

Correction:

AIW 9700 Pro is not supported yet by GATOS drivers.. work is just starting.

It's not so much the hardware these days

[Anonymous Coward]

A few months ago i bought the cheapest Hauppauge card i could find. At first i was disappointed by the picture quality, but I soon found out that the software that comes with it is some of the poorest i've ever seen. long story short, use Dscaler when in windows and tvtime in linux

Cheep or expensive?

[Markos]

Well if you got some money to spend, the hauppauge PVR series of cards can't be beat with their hardware encoding goodness.

However, if you don't need hardware encoding, then any card based on the brooktree (bt8xx) will do fine in linux.

Personaly, I've got the Ati Tv Wonder. Worked perfectly under linux for years now, and can be found dirt cheep , about 80 dollars cdn. Note that the VE version is mono only, no stereo.

Ati's drivers for 2k,xp have been terrible for a long time for the tv wonder. If you weren't using an ati display adapter, you were sool. There was a bug in their multimedia center that made it impossible to use on nvidia based cards. They finally fixed that, and now everything seems to be great with their drives.

Most of the time I don't even use their software, Dscaler for windows is my tv viewing application of choice for windows, and its free :)

Some random tv apps for linux: Mythtv, Tvtime (dscaler port for linux, more or less) & trusty ol xawtv.

ATI TV wonder VE

[Anonymous Coward]

cheap wal-mart. works great with Dscaler. Records live brodcasts in any format you want. pay no attention to what the box says, and don't use bundled software or drivers.

Get a SVHS-VGA converter/switchbox

[thebits]

I get a stellar picture from a Tivo or a PS/2 (and a dv cam) by running the video through a converter box such as the cheesebox. It also has a switch/passthough on it to run your vga through. Sicne I have 2 vga monitors on my dual head video card, I switch out the 2nd monitor to watch the tivo output, or the ps2, at full screen, and then my pc still has the primary monitor going.

Other companies also make fancier switchboxes, and they mostly suck and cost more. Make sure you can return them, or else you may see some blurring or bizarre flckering that you didn't count on when you read the brochure.

As a bonus, the image is progressive scanned, and looks great with dvds.

Leadtek WinFast 2000 XP PVR

[stankulp]

$48 with shipping.

I love mine.

You can record from the TV tuner, or the S-Video input.

hauppauge wintv radio is nice

[Internet_Communist]

I got the radio model because it had stereo sound. It can use the btaudio linux driver to capture digital audio right from the chip itself, no loopback cable (analog) needed. I use it to record tv daily and it works extremely well. Mine uses the bt878 chip but some models (recent PAL models I think) use a different chip which isn't supported as well under linux.

Linux compatible

[stankulp]

And it runs just fine under Linux. Mandrake and Knoppix both find it without any help.

Why a closed hardware architecture ?

[ArcticCelt]

Why when it comes the time to buy the Hardware the argument is "...if you want editing capabilities, you need horsepower" and then when its time to speak about software only the "el cheapo" (open source) solution is the right one?

In other words why is it better to go with closed hardware architecture and open source than open hardware architecture and closed software?

Sorry I'll go for the PC.

Re:PC is the way to go.

[w3weasel]

ummmmmm.... ok, not open source but iMovie???

its free, it works well with osX (duh) and it features real time features such as the [sarcasm]fancy schmancy fades you describe[/sarcasm].

oh, and mod parent off topic : )

Strange...

[/dev/trash]

Who would buy someone without a TV a Playstation 2 and a Mini DV outfit?

Secondly wouldn't buying a TV be cheaper and simpler?

right on

[muyuubyou]

This past Christmas, I recieved a PS2 along with a mini-dv camera set. Well, now I'll need something to view these with since I don't have a television in my apartment. So, I was looking into picking up a TV-tuner card for my computer.

Who else thinks the crap we call TV deserves to be ditched for good? Yeah. That way they will probably start bombarding us less with ads and start broadcasting decent stuff.

I do my part checking in newspapers (and the net) what I want to see and NOT keeping it turned on if I'm not satisfied.

Not having a TV at all is definitely an option.

Some people just watch too much TV. Hopefully the Internet will take a good slice from our attention span.

Re:right on

[blincoln]

Not having a TV at all is definitely an option.

I haven't had an antenna or cable for my TV for almost four years, but they're still very useful for watching movies and playing videogames.

I've tried using my PC monitor, but it's just not the same, especially when you can get a pretty nice 27"+ TV for not too much money.

Attaching a Console

[Silverkm]

This past Christmas, I recieved a PS2 I've delt a lot with the hauppauge, emuzed and blackbird tv tuner cards, and of course they all have their perks. Although, i have not had much luck hooking up console's to them. Gameplay just isn't the same, not sure why. Admittingly I've never attempted this in linux. The best solution would be to pick up a cheap TV or my favorite the Commodore 64 monitor! But if you're heart is set on the TV tuner the ati all in wonder seems to be the way to go!

Not good for video games

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hauppauge 250 is a great card to watch and record TV, but because of the 2-3 second delay as the video stream is encoded into MPEG-2, it makes playing any sort of video game system through it virtually impossible. Beware.

Re:Not good for video games

[b96miata]

^ Mod this one up, was just about to post that issue myself. The delay pretty much negates using it with a ps2. In this case a regular bt848 based el cheapo capture card is the way to go. I've used them for the exact purpose the OP mentions (video game consoles)

Re:Not good for video games

[enrico_suave]

True dat...

MAy I suggest for the ps2 the article submitter get a ps2 to VGA adapter and a KVM or just Monitor switchbox =P

*Shrug* oh and a cheap TV tuner card...

Although if you want to do the brew your own pvr I'd check out the hauppage 250/350 the others have been pointing out...

good luck!

E.

Re:Not good for video games

[puetzk]

The linux ivtv drivers also support direct YUV capture, which AIUI eliminates the delay. However, the actual pixel format the card uses is somewhat odd (designed for use by it's compression engine, not for external apps), so not all tuner apps can use this mode. I'm pretty sure mplayer's tuner mode does, and I think there are some others as well.

However, if you aren't going to use the compression, the card is rather spendy for a live-capture only card :-) Better to buy an el-cheapo BTTV if you just plan to connect a game system instead of a tv input.

Re:Hauppauge WinTV

[Cylix]

Indeed,

I still have a Brooktree 848 card sitting on my desk. Like others have said, its just narrowing down your tuner, which is generally labeled on the unit.

I have also picked up a Hauppage PVR-250 card and it works well. I'm going to sell it and get a the 350 though. I want the TV out capabilities and not just vanilla capture.

I also have a DXR3 mpeg decoder, but I do not recommend this unit. It works alright with Xine. I remember it being more trouble then it was worth, but for 10$....

it'll look like crap, don't do it

[Anonymous Coward]

The deinterlacers for computer TV inputs are poor enough that video games are tough to play on them.

Might a recommend a cheap TV?

Mini-DV

[rf0]

For the actual DV you might want to look at Kino as its a stable editor for raw DV footage

Rus

Hauppauge WinTV PVR versus pinCRAPple PCTV

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have a Pinnacle PCTV Pro and tried to play PS2 on it but gave up fast.. picture quality was just AWFUL.. dont know what the PCTV had against my PS2 but it was impossible to view.. so I bought a TV.. later ive aquired a Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB2 wich works great for recordnign but being USB2 (i assume thats why anywya) it lags like 2 seconds behind what u put into it and whats seen on screen so thats no good for PS2 anyway.. the internal PVR250/350 someone else suggested may not lag .. but as far as a PVR for tv its great and im sure the Internal ones are good too..

Ive heard a lot of crap about Hauppauge as a former PCTV owner and I was kinda sceptical but after getting it I've come to realize that all the negativity of Hauppauge must be a Pinnacle smokescreen cos they TRULY have crappy software with nonexistent support.. with WinTV i have no experience with support as I havent needed any yet.....

The only think really is that ive noticed that OCCASIONALLY the WinTV2000 app crashes on start but just try and start it again and all is good.. I dont use linux but i KNOW the WinTV PVR's are supported by several programs there.. at least the internal series.. the PCTV isnt supported by one damned shit on ANY os besides the GARBAGE pctv software.. theres the BTWinCAP driver wich "works" if thats what u wanna call it.. and Dscaler wich is just goddamn awful..

Re:Hauppauge WinTV

[yipyow]

I have also heard good reports on the WinTV. I personally use a card which is not made by Hauppage but is similar - the Prolink PV878P+. This card has good Linux support through the v4l drivers since it uses the bt878 chipset. It tunes both cable TV and FM radio, has an analog S-video input, and it changes channels quickly amongst other things. It also comes with a good remote, although I don't believe there's any Linux support for that yet. Best part is, you can pick one up at newegg.com for under $40.

My other advice is this - don't go for an ATI all-in-wonder, an NVIDIA personal cinema card, or a 3dfx card with a TV tuner. I have had several of these combo video card/tuners and they all have some relatively large flaw in Windows, not to mention virtually nonexistant Linux support.

All three of those cards typically suffer from poor drivers - for instance, the only drivers available for the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV are for win9x only. Even then, if you want to output to a TV you can't output to a monitor at the same time. For the first generation NVIDIA personal cinema cards (based on a GeForce2 MX400), the newest NVIDIA drivers don't work. You have to use the super-old v21.xx detonator drivers and v16.xx wdm drivers that come on the CD. At best you lose certain features with these old drivers, and they may not be as efficient as the newer ones. At worst they will abruptly reboot your computer with a "hardware error" message - not pretty!

Regifted?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you're not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but who the heck bought you a PS2 and a camcorder with the knowledge that you don't own a TV?

get something brooktree...

[Anonymous Coward]

The avermedia line is inexpensive (~$50) and runs great on the bttv and v4l driver combination.

Now take that PS2 and go to http://www.broadq.com

Get you the qcast software, or go to Wal-mart and buy it under the Gameshark Media Player packaging, whatever. It's ~$50 too. Get a PS2 broadband adapter while you're there at the Wal-mart, $29.

Then you can use mencoder and cron and you have yourself a serviceable PVR. Neat.

Brooktree Corporation Bt878

[Janek Kozicki]

my tv tuner works perfectly under linux (I'm using it for 3 months). and my brother used it with windows (for 1 year, then he gave it to me).

It is produced by Philips, and is quite old. Just look for Brooktree brand.

lspci:
00:0c.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
00:0c.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)

To get it to work under linux I had to do following things (in kernel make menuconfig):

Character devices --->I2C support --->
[*] I2C support
[*] I2C bit-banging interfaces
[*] I2C /proc interface (required for hardware sensors)

Multimedia devices --->[M] Video For Linux
Video For Linux --->
[*] V4L information in proc filesystem
[M] BT848 Video For Linux

and that's all required configuration. I had to google after this whole info a bit. So here you are ;) everything info you need. After compiling the kernel (and rebooting ;) you will only need to install tvtime (I think this is the best program to watch tv under linux).

After configuring kernel it just works! I started to mess with modules configuration, but after a short while I discovered that I don't have to ;-))

I have a remote control too, and I googled a bit so I know it should work. But I have a wireless keboard, so I was too lazy to check out what is needed to run remote control ;))

Re:PC is the way to go.

[TheWanderingHermit]

I haven't used iMovie, so I can't really comment on it. I've seen other professionals I've worked with use Final Cut and it's fantastic (but not free).

As for [sarcasm]fancy schmancy fades you describe[/sarcasm], they're not fancy schmancy if you're doing anything professional. For example, I tend to use dissolves on most of my short demos -- even if it's only a 10 frame dissolve-- because it helps create a more even flow and unified feel (unless I want a jerky, abrubt feel) and ties one shot into the next better than a cut. It's rare I start anything (especially 30 second spots) with anything other than a fade in or end them with anything other than a fade out.

But then again, that's just me in my role as a professional video producer. For your use, if you're just cutting out the commercials from whatever show you're copying (instead of paying for it so those that created it can earn a few bucks for their work), I can see why you wouldn't need it.

As far as simple goes -- I've seen a number of people who get home editing software start to do photo collections. I used to do a lot of these while I still worked for other people -- you take photos and music, lay down the music, and put the photos on video with the music background. This is something that almost always works better with dissolves and wipes. If you're doing one that's 5 minutes or longer, it can get boring (even if the viewer cares about the content in the photos), so adding a few wipes and a variety of dissovles can help. As more of the home video people do more of this, I see them realizing that what they once thought was more than they needed is really a basic part of the professional toolbox.

How About a TV Instead?

[unborracho]

By the looks of the sugguestions here, people are pointing out to the PVR 250 and 350 series that runs between $135-$200 on froogle.

For that price you could pick up a decent Television to watch your movies and TV while you're trolling on /.

It would just make more sense to me.. unless you really want to turn your rig into a TiVo, i would just buy a TV. You'll most likely be using your extra hard disk space to rip movies from your camera anyway, not to save episodes of star trek. Let others do that and get them from kazaa =)

Multi-tasking.

[servasius_jr]

Just get a TV for fifty bucks at a pawn shop. It'll probably either be stolen, or have been hocked by someone in desperate straits, so in a sense you'll be trafficing in human misery, but hey, can't beat the prices. That way you'll be able to surf porn while you're watching Letterman.

Re:Multi-tasking.

[unitron]

"That way you'll be able to surf porn while you're watching Letterman."

And of course the latter will do a more than adequate job of inhibiting any embarrassing physical reactions to the former.

Re:Multi-tasking.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, cry me a river you stupid bleeding heart. I couldn't give a fuck.

Get a Good Output Cable

[CoolGuySteve]

I'm living in a cramped dorm room and ended up creating the same setup that you're considering. I have my PS2 connected to the cheapest BT878 card I could find (it's a $50 KWorld card from www.newegg.com ).

I use TVTime in Linux (the 2.6 kernel worked without a hitch) and DScaler in windows and it works out pretty well. I actually found my Redhat 9 install handled the card with much less hassle than Windows, no drivers or setup were required.

You need to ditch Sony's stock composite out cable however. The scanlines really standout and get annoying after a while (the screen has a ripple pattern constantly moving downwards). You also don't get a picture that's sharp enough to display 640x480 very well.

I bought an S-Video Monster Cable from Electronics Boutique and the sharpness was greatly improved. Before then, I thought a lot of my games were displayed 320x240. The scanlines still exist but are far less annoying. I've mostly tuned them out using fancy display filters.

Altogether, getting a monitor with TV-inputs might be a better solution. I assume the scanline problems would go away. My problems could also just be from buying a shitty capture card.

Re:PVR 250/350 - off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

"The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we"

There is. That's why nobody gets out alive...

I use an avermedia avertv studio

[Mark19960]

this card uses the bttv driver, and the remote works with lirc.
the remote is really bad, if you ask me. I used lirc, a serial IR reciever and another remote with applications like mythtv and tvtime just fine. the stock remote IR reciever wont work with other remotes.
I hope this is of some help to the /. crowd.

If you want truly cross platform.

[Stonent1]

BTTV for Solaris! It has drivers for Solaris x86 and Solaris UltraSPARC.

Re:PC is the way to go.

[w3weasel]

iMovie is FinalCut lite... the effects library is limited, the filters are fewer. The real difference is in import/export where exotic source/destination formats may not work with iMovie... something the homeuser will never miss.

without spending money on software, you can't do better than iMovie. End of discussion (star wipe to black).

AIW 9000 Pro

[kernelpanic77]

The Card only cost me around 200 bucks Canadian, which is about what... 120-140 American. It has a beautiful picture, packs quite a good punch performance wise for its cost, so it will run most games. TV In, HDTV Out, as well as Video In make this an awesome card.

Re:PC is the way to go.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently he's never heard of MEncoder, Final Cut Express/Pro, Avid, etc... Entire industry. What a fucking troll.

You don't have a TV?

[Leo il Leone]

Then what do you point all your funiture at?

Winfast tv 2000 xp deluxe

[Anonymous Coward]

I got one of these a couple of weeks ago and I've been trying to set it up on a gentoo machine without luck. I was running the gentoo sources (2.4.20 r9) and there wasn't the option for a BT878 module or anything like that. I downloaded the 2.4.22 r2 kernel which had the bt drivers but I couldn't get IP masquerading to work under the new kernel (which did work under the old kernel). Anyone know what's going on?

Good experiences w/ Hauppauge

[omega9]

I've been using a Hauppauge WinTV PCI w/ FM for a few years now and have no complaints. It's got good sounding stereo sound and with a good enough antenna the FM reception is very good too. CPU utilization while watching TV depends on the app. With xawtv it's practically zero, with tvtime it sits around 10% (due to picture smoothing, etc..). That card is moving into a MythTV box at the moment.

The Hauppauge PVR250 is on my current shopping list. MythTV supports the 250s hardware mpeg encoding, so you can record without putting pressure on your CPU. I'm sure the same is true for it's own Windows application.

You might also look for a VGA converter for your PS/2. Lets you plug your PS/2 straight into your monitor. Pick up a KVM with it and you're set.

Re:Good experiences w/ Hauppauge

[entrigant]

The PVR350 model is also supported and has a few important differences you might or might not be aware of. First off last I checked the 250 still has that tiny crappy remote with nothing but channel changing buttons and a number pad. The 350 comes with a full featured remote which is nice. The 350 also supports tv output directly so you don't have to use your video cards tv output which is usually of lower quality in my experience than something dedicated like in the 350. Also, I am not sure if the 250 has this but the 350 has a mpeg2 decoder as well so time shifting and the sort requires practically 0 cpu usage on the encoding and decoding end. It's a little more expensive but the feature list is impressive.

Re:Good experiences w/ Hauppauge

[Bilange]

I have the same model (Called "WinTV-GO-FM", "model 128"), and works fine under both Windows and Linux.

Re:Good experiences w/ Hauppauge

[toddestan]

Or just look at what you got. The other day I was cleaning an older 15" Sony monitor I have, and found out it has a s-video input on the back! Don't have anything to hook to it right now, but nice to know it's there.

Not compatible with Snapstream

[NoData]

The submitter is asking for a cross-platform solution. One big caveat is that the most popular PVR software for Windows is Snapstream. According to their knowledge base, a number of cards, including the Leadtek Winfast 2000 XP Deluxe, is not compatible with their software.
http://kb.snapstream.com/Kb.aspx?kbid=1049

I too am adding PVR functionality to my computer. Anyone know of what compromise card would be both Snapstream and MythTV compatible?

Re:Not compatible with Snapstream

[tourettes]

Well, this point should not really matter because this card comes with it's own PVR software that works quite well in my opinion.

Re:Not compatible with Snapstream

[sn0wcrash]

Hauppauge PVR-250 or PVR-350 is gonna be a safe bet. Onboard MPEG-2 and compatible with MythTV, Freevo, SageTV and Snapstream.

is it worth it?

[thanasakis]

I 've been trying to find and buy the pvr250 for about two months (I live in Greece). My plans were simple:install the card and make a mythTV video recorder using my pc. But it seems that the local representative of Haupage here was not interested in selling any units so after a dozen phone calls to various stores (they kept telling me that there weren't any units available) I decided to just drop it, and went and bought a
philips dvdr70. It may be more expensive than the pvr250/350 but:

1)The price is roughly the same with the sum of the prices of a decent dvdr (~200Euros) for the pc and the haupage (~200Euros).
2)If I was going to use the pc as a pvr, I would probably have to buy a small UPS too. Dunno about other countries but here in Greece, leaving the pc open always is a recipe for disaster. Add about ~120Euros minimum for that too.
3)I believe a standalove product is more usable than a pc based pvr. In the later case I would be the only one in my family really able to use it.
4)The standalone writer is really plug and play. Hell, it even learned the channels from my tv, so I did not have to do anything besides plugging it to the outlet and the tv set.

Of course the pvr based solution probably offers more capabilities so someone may have no choice than to use it.

Re:is it worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, you really made me cry when I saw your prices. The bEUreaucrats are sucking you dry.

Re:is it worth it?

[thanasakis]

Alas it is not the EU...

Greece is the second most expensive country in the EU. I had a cup of tea this afternoon with my friends in downtown Athens and I had to pay fscking 3.5Euros for a fscking cup of fscking tea!!!

Re:is it worth it?

[whereiswaldo]

...I had to pay fscking 3.5Euros...

Coffee shops are almost always expensive. You can pay $3-5 in the US and Canada easily for a cup of coffee if you go to one of the big chains (like StarBucks, Second Cup, etc.).

Re:is it worth it?

[Com2Kid]

• Coffee shops are almost always expensive. You can pay $3-5 in the US and Canada easily for a cup of coffee if you go to one of the big chains (like StarBucks, Second Cup, etc.).

Alternativly, if you buy a bag of the tea that is USED at starbucks, it costs around 65 cents (at least that is what I pay for it. ^_^ )

Coffee, no clue. Don't drink it, I value my cash too much. :)

Re:is it worth it?

[thanasakis]

yeah, but the average salary in the US is probably around 3 times the average salary around here.

Re:is it worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The average in Canada and the US is probably around 50,000 to 70,000 by my estimates.

Re:is it worth it?

[whereiswaldo]

I can't seem to find an English and/or North American link to the Philips DVDR70. Is it available in the US or Canada?

Re:is it worth it?

[thanasakis]

FYI:
USA purchasing power parity - $36,300
Greece purchasing power parity - $19,100
Canada purchasing power parity - $29,300
UK purchasing power parity - $25,500
Germany purchasing power parity - $26,200

Dunno if the numbers are accurate, but I would be very much interested to also know the standard deviation for each of these figures. IMHO, for Greece the dispersion must be HUGE, while in America or Canada I believe it must be close to Gaussian.

Re:is it worth it?

[thanasakis]

I think yes.

You probably want to buy the dvdr80 as it is more feature rich than the 70.

Haupagge 250 or 350, that is the question!

[j0rd]

I've been in the market for one of these cards, yet i can't figure out which is the better bang for buck.

the 350PVR costs $255cnd
the 250PVR costs $190cnd (ncix.com)

The only major difference i see between the two cards is that the 350PVR has a hardware mpeg2 decoder/encoder while the 250PVR only has an encoder. Is that worth an extra 60$? Please help me out.

Re:Haupagge 250 or 350, that is the question!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering the same. The 250 has Hardware enocder, but does not have hardware decoder. I think it is worth the extra money if you watch movies on your computer. If you are just using it to capture then it might not be worth the extra money

Re:Haupagge 250 or 350, that is the question!

[j0rd]

most of the movies i watch are avi's though, this is an mpeg2 decoder. Forgive me for being ignorant but will that even do anything?

Cheesebox not in store

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for recommending a product sold by a vendor who doesn't have it listed in their online store.

Evil skinned interfaces on PVR software

[mfearby]

My brother has a WinFast TV2000 XP which works fine under Windows (dunno about Linux), but the very fact that it has a "Visually delightful new interface" is keeping me from buying one.

The card is actually very good, but why on earth do these dumb manufacturers have to clothe their software in shitty skins and give the customer no option to remove it? We can all thank winamp for spreading this disease!

My brother opened reshack or some such program and found that there is actually a normal-enough looking interface underneath that horrid skin, so you'd think it wouldn't be much effort to include a check-box in the options screen that says "Do not use skin". For some reason, these idiotic Taiwanese dimwits must think that skinned software is very lucky and golden, or something...

Re:Hauppauge WinTV

[smchris]

Yup. NT, OS/2 and linux in a classic WinTV here.

Distance X1-to-wall for your 60"?

[janbjurstrom]

Interesting (if OT :) ). I'm also looking at the X1 (lots of rave reviews netside..). Infocus has a "projection calculator" on their site - but it's Flash ...and that piece of abhorrance won't be installed on my system any time soon.

Perhaps you have the algorithm for calculating the projection area for the X1?

Or, if not - just so we can get a general idea what to expect: how far from the wall is your X1 today?

Re:Distance X1-to-wall for your 60"?

[jafo]

I have mine set up ceiling-mount, upside down, with no keystone correction. My screen is a Da-Lite model Video "B". The screen is 75" diag, or 58"x48". At 88" from the screen, the image is 49" to 57", depending on the "zoom" setting.

Sean

Strangely enough...

[ncc74656]

...the Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP Deluxe seems to work better under Linux than it does under Windows. It's just another BT878-based capture card with TV/FM tuner and a remote control, but the WDM driver supplied by Leadtek sucks ass (try getting both audio and video working with it) and the capture/PVR software drops frames. This driver and this capture program work much better under Windows.

Under Linux, you can use the kernel bttv driver, the current CVS of lirc, and MythTV to make a PVR that works better than the software bundled with the card. If all you want is simple TV playback, tvtime will do that. (tvtime's useful to keep around for TV-card debugging anyway, and it's more polished than xawtv.)

(If you buy the NTSC version of this card and want to use it under Linux, you'll need to edit drivers/media/video/bttv-cards.c so that the tuner will be set up properly. Search for "Leadtek WinFast 2000/ WinFast 2000 XP", scroll down to the .tuner_type= line, and change it from 5 to TUNER_PHILIPS_NTSC. If you don't do this, the tuner and the remote control won't work properly.)

Re:Strangely enough...

[deaddeng]

Awesome post for anyone one interested in using a TV tuner card and gaining PVR functions under linux. Thanks, just wish I had mod points.

HD-2000

[gr8_phk]

There is the HD-2000 over at www.pchdtv.com it receives HDTV and outputs the ATSC bit stream which can be dumped to hard drive or piped into xine. It also claims to receive NTSC broadcasts, so I imagine it has an MPEG encoder on it (not sure yet). The drivers are 100% OSS for Linux, but someone will probably do a windoze port at some point. It does NOT have a cable tuner (only broadcast) so you need one of those antenna things. If you're looking to the future, you need HDTV - all my local stations are broadcast in both. My card came by mail yesterday, but I can't give any details, as I now have to buy that new computer it's supposed to go into :-)

bttv cards suck for this kind of thing

[ChrisJones]

I know that's probably not what a lot of posts are saying here, but since I'm not at home and am thus on a modem, I really don't want to sit here and pay to read all the comments, so here's my $0.02 for free ;)

I have a Hauppauge WinTV PCI card, it's based on the bt878 chipset and it is perfectly adequate for watching TV on the not very good reception I get in my room. I have connected it to my PS2 before and, even in fullscreen (perhaps especially in fullscreen), the quality is disappointing compared to a "proper" TV. However, all is not lost.
While I have not used one myself, I know a number of people with the newer DVB cards, which capture the TV onboard and encode it to MPEG2, before streaming it with UDP to the host computer over the PCI bus. This obviously requires more resources from the PC to decode/display than a bttv (the driver used for bt8x8 chips) card writing directly to video RAM over bus mastering, however, the quality should be significantly superior, especially on a high quality local video source such as a PS2. So there.

Cheers,

USB card ?

[romeomustdie]

I was wondering if there is any TV tuner card that could be plugged into your USB port. I use a desktop which is a SFF module, hence adding hardware is a real big problem. I even don't know if i could add PCI devices into this.

Re:USB card ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe hauppauge has one...

Re:USB card ?

[cyt0plas]

To answer your question, yes, but...
1) Quality. It sucks. It's not worth it.
2) Drivers. They suck. Don't plan on using it under Linux.
3) Bandwidth. USB doesn't have very good bandwidth, and as such, it sucks.

Re:USB card ?

[firebomb]

I have an ATI USB TV tuner/capture device (usb tv wonder).
and I have to say..its awful.

I got a decent machine (p4 2.8GHz HT, 512 MB DDR400, and a 120 gig hdd) and it drops an insane ammount of frames.
I have even tried speed disking the drive before capping.

Also the resolution isnt that good..it maxes at 320x200, while a rage 3d pro i had didnt drop many frames (maybe 10 for each 10 minutes while the ati does about 150 every minute!) and it capped at 700+ res

hope this helps

Re:USB card ?

[Ratbert42]

I use a Hauppauge WinTV-USB and am pretty happy with it. If it drops frames, I don't notice. It's not like I'm doing video editing with it (that's what my Firewire ports are for). The newer ones do audio over the USB cable so you don't even need to feed a line-in port on your soundcard. Though, again, the audio quality over USB is supposedly worse than the analog line-in port (which you can still use), but I can't tell the difference. What do you want? It's NTSC composite video with crappy analog sound. Watch a DVD if you really want to memorize Natalie Portman's every feature.

Re:USB card ?

[Anonymous Coward]

480Mbit/s sounds enough to me.

Re:USB card ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I was thinking. Doesn't standard PCI top out at 133 MBps? The USB capture devices I've used certainly did suck (usually lack of features), but I don't think it's a fault of the standard.

Re:USB card ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if your numbers are right or not, but assuming they are, you are aware that 133MBps is faster than 480Mbit/s right?

Also keep in mind that USB is CPU bound so you will not necessarily realize the full bandwidth.

Re:USB card ?

[David Jao]

I have a Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB capture card for use with my laptop under linux. Note that the PVR part is important -- there is another Hauppauge card called WinTV USB which in my opinion is far inferior. The difference is that the PVR card has a hardware mpeg encoder and it encodes the video into mpeg before sending it down the USB wire, which gives you a lot more video quality for the limited bandwidth available under USB.

I wrote a linux-oriented review of this card on the dvdrhelp web site (search for the May 10, 2003 review) which contains everything that I have to say about using this card in linux.

Re:USB card ?

[dirty]

I'm 99% certain that PCI is 133 Megabytes per second. USB 2.0 is 480 Megabits per second or 60 Megabytes per second. Keep in mind that USB has to travel over the PCI bus to get anywhere in your system so the PCI bus will always (well probably not always) set your max speed.

Get a firewire card

[stox]

If you want to view your DV-video camera, a firewire card is going to give you a much better image than sampling analog output with a video capture/tuner card.

Re:Certainly anti-american

[mfearby]

The U.S. are probably more dangerous, if not more so, than Iran. How many countries has the U.S. invaded and interfered in? A whole lot more than Iran, my friend! Which of the following nations have dropped nuclear bombs on innocent civilians?

1) Iran
2) The United States of America

I think the answer is "2" :) so, you see, Iran is a far more safer country than your "angelic" United States.

So, Anonymous Coward, I have read your article and thought about it, just as you wanted. Unlike yourself, though, I am not afraid to put my name to these comments.

Just make sure you dont buy an ATI card

[ralphclark]

...because the gatos project's goods just don't cut it. It's in permanent pre-alpha. You'll be lucky if you can get any of it working at all.

Planar Video-EX

[name_already_taken]

I have a Cheesebox, in my junk box now. I switched to a Planar Video-EX about a year ago. The cheesebox is good for what it is, but if you can pay a little more, the Video-EX has a lot more to offer.

It has a built-in TV tuner, switchable pass-thru, S-Video and composite inputs, and will output 640x480, 800x600 or 1024x768. It's available for about $120, which is a bargain for the output quality it produces.

Even a composite video source looks a lot better on a good monitor at 1024x768 than it does at the 640x480 resolution which is the only output format the cheesebox supports.

Avoid ATI TV Wonder Pro cards

[nvrrobx]

I have one of these cards, and it's Linux support is still in development. While it does work, it doesn't do audio, and it doesn't support overlay yet.

These cards use a Conexant CX88xx chipset, so stick with like a TV Wonder VE or TV Wonder PCI if you want Linux support. The picture on the TV Wonder Pro is much better than the TV Wonder VE, but...

You can follow the driver development at http://bytesex.org/cx88/ if you have one of these cards.

Re:Avoid ATI TV Wonder Pro cards

[bshensky]

I second this - I've tried countless times to make something of the GATOS drivers, but end up throwing my hands up in the air.

I eventually went with a Hauppague WinTV card.

To appease my prior purchase (ATI AIW Radeon), I've taken to using Open Source tools (Perl, PHP, WebVCR, Apache, XMLTV) to create an online scheduling app that works with the ATI AIW scheduleing software and MMC app. I'll post it to Sourceforge when it's ready...

Problems with Video Games and Video Latency

[mceister]

I would not expect the PS2 to be 100% usable through a Tuner card in a pc. There is a latency issue with converting the signals and getting the images to the monitor. These are the same issues you would have running a video game console through a Tivo or ReplayTV. It works OK for slow paced games like Morrowwind but renders games like Halo unusable.

Linux media labs

[russ_allegro]

http://www.linuxmedialabs.com/

The sell what you want.

Re:Hauppauge WinTV

[samulik]

I used to have Hauppage WinTV, until I recently got PVR 250. While the Hauppage card worked, the picture quality is _vastly_ superior with PVR 250. The large quality difference might be emphasized by the weak TV signal in my apartment.

Also recording a movie from TV was rather painful with the Hauppage card. My Celeron 1400 CPU was just barely able to encode in realtime to 640x480 mpeg4 using mencoder, but even then a second pass was required to do deinterlacing or whatever you needed for that particular grab. If during the grabbing you did anything cpu intensive, you started losing frames. The worst part however was that the audio started slowly drifting and the resulting grab was hence useless.

With PVR 250, it's a joy to grab high quality video without using almost any CPU, and you can be certain there are no surprising problems in the output.

PVR 250 isn't without its problems though. Mainly, the drivers require too much tweaking to make use of, and they don't offer v4l interface. Also at one point the recording sometimes suddenly stopped after an half an hour or so. The drivers appear to be actively worked on though, so there's hoping they will be in far better shape within a year.

PVR 350, I've been told, is worth the money if you want to watch interlaced video on TV. My friend has one, and says PVR 350 handles the interlaced video output very much visibly better than what he has managed before.

Watch out for the Pinnacle PCTV series

[riddim]

I bought a Pinnacle PCTV Pro card a while ago after thorough research to make sure that it would work under linux. On their website it says that there are working linux drivers for their cards and I read a couple of success stories using the bttv-drivers.

But of course the card didn't work at all. I could use the composite inputs, but the tuner didn't work.

After searching around the video4linux mailing list archives I found some information that Pinnacle had changed their tuner to a new one without telling anyone.

I tried to contact Pinnacle to tell them that I either wanted to return the card or to get them to release the specifications for the tuner so someone could add the new tuner (Microtune MT2050) to the bttv driver. The Pinnacle support refused to acknowledge that there was a problem and pointed me to the bttv drivers even though i tried explaining to them a hundred times what the problem was.

Then I tried contacting microtune to get the specifications for the tuner so I could write the driver myself. I got an account for their developer area, and there they had specifications for all their tuners except the MT2050.

After that I got pissed off and called the Pinnacle Germany HQ to get some answers. They put in contact with some kind of lead developer who was able to listen to my problem and said that he would try to help me out with specifications. I never heard from him after that.

I also contacted microtune again and they told me that the MT2050 specification was classified.

I am not good enough a coder to reverse engineer the windows drivers, and I didn't have enough time, so I gave up. Now someone has at last reverse engineered them so now I can watch TV, but the quality is abysmal (even in windows).

So my recommendation is. Stay away from Pinnacle!

Re:Watch out for the Pinnacle PCTV series

[Rgb465]

Yes, Ive also had bad dealings with Pinnacle tuner cards.

After some research, I bought a Pinnacle card with the intention of using it on a Windows box... After about 4 hours of constantly reinstalling drivers / rebooting, I gave up. Either Pinnacle's drivers are worthless, or Windows Plug 'N Pray failed once again, Ill never be sure. All I know is, the next card I tried (AverMedai TV Studio) worked like a charm, the FIRST time.

Not to be a smart@$$

[ResQuad]

Not to be a smart @$$ but does your mini dv cam have usb/firewire hookups? If so why dont you use them? Much better quality too. Though the PS2 might be a problem unless you have a decent cam and some creative wireing.

If your DV has USB/Firewire and analog inputs (many do now adays) you can hook the DV up to the comp when you want DV stuff, and you can put the PS2 into the inputs! I know it sounds crazy, but I have done it on a few occasions.

Nevermind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Under my current setup with the latest (unstable) MPlayer-1.0_pre3, the test script I was using now records without skipping.

FWIW, at the time of testing I was probably using gentoo-sources-2.4.19-r9 and vanilla 2.4.19 with and without patches, ALSA 0.9.2, and whatever the current MPlayer/Mythtv were.

Why Not...

[xheotris]

Find a decent TV at a garage sale? I've looked at perfectly functional 25" TVs for under $100, but couldn't justify that against the cable-ready 19" I bought for $10.

Hardware, not software

[SlamMan]

Easy answer is to it the hardware way. Pick up a video to VGA box. Makes it so you computer doesn't even need to be on when playing games.

OMFG

[t0ny]

How about a suggestion for something which DOENST cost $2000?

Ask DVDRHelp

[Rufus211]

Ask DVDR/VCDhelp.com, they probably know far more. Also look through their Capture Card list which includes a checkbox if it works under linux.

A Cheap Card with the BT878 chip

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi

I have had a great success with an AverTV Tuner card from Avermedia (www.aver.com), I can even capture in real time from local TV channels, VCR or any other device with Video and Audio out. This is very cheap, but good card.

The card was recognized by the my Mandrake Linux 9.1 and I can use it in both Linux and Windows, but mainly for real time capture in Windows XP using Virtualdub.

You can use Composite, S-Video or just an aerial Antenna as your video source.

P.S.
Of course, you can use other cards, just make sure that the one you purchase comes with the BT878 chip from conexant.

Only get ATI

[Wister285]

I tried a Hauppauge model once, however I found that every company except for ATI has terrible software. I'm not sure about ATI TV Tuner Linux support, but if you use Windows only get ATI. MMC is such an easy, full featured product. I currently have an AIW card, but the TV Wonder Pro should do everything you need.

Re:Only get ATI

[Rgb465]

The TVW under Linux isnt soo bad, but in Windows its a real pain. Its not a hardware problem, merely the fact that ATI's drivers suck noodles and Windows Plug 'N Pray doesnt help it any.

For the money, go out and get a AverMedia TV Studio. Its cheap, works beautifully under both Linux and Windows, has a built in FM tuner, and it even comes with a remote... (And the Windows drivers are decent, too...)

or pawn shop

[iamhassi]

or you could just go to a pawn shop and pick up a used tv.

You'd be amazed at how far $50 will go in a pawn shop.

If the only reason you're getting a tv-input card is so you can view your PS2 and MiniDV camera on your PC then you're better off spending the $$ on a real TV.

4-year-old non-FM WinTV encodes on 400mhz CPU

[cwolfsheep]

I got my WinTV card back in 1999 around the time I had an AMD K6-3-400 processor on a VIA MVP3 chipset. Besides the occasional lockups (MVP3 was not a good chipset), I was able to encode into Windows Media back then, and DivX & MPEG now on my XP1800+. Worked "out-of-box" in BeOS PE 5, and Linux support has been good: sound support was the only hangup I encountered (try getting it to play nice with a s***ty ISA sound card). The only reason I'd need a newer one is for stereo sound & guaranteed encoding past 320x240 res (the Windows drivers have a quirk, but I remember being able to do 640x480 before).

WinTV-GO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using a WinTV-GO in Linux and (sometimes) Windows 2000. It works much better in Linux than Windows. My system has two monitors connected to an Nvidia card - the Windows driver automatically makes the right hand monitor display video full screen - the Windows app that comesa with the card works well enough but the right hand monitor's display has artifacts on the right and bottom borders. Also when closing the Windows app there are times when the image on the monitor freezes and Task Manager is unable to close the progrqam - the only thing that works is the reset button.

In Linux, TVtime and Zapping both work well, although TVtime is much better.

For recording I've been messing with MythTV which seems to work really well so far.

I'd have to say that with one of these cards your best bet is probably Linux rather than Windows. The nice thing is the hardware is cheap and the software free/open.

Not a card, but . . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's something I've found to be useful for the task at hand. The people suggesting you use Firewire for the camera are probably on the money, but for the PS2 you should consider one of these little gadgets.

http://www.rtv-veg.com/

The trouble I've had with every video capture card under Windows XP involves a strange crash-bug that ends up making the system unbootable. Your mileage may vary, of course, but the definite advantage with this box is that it doesn't mess around with the internals of your PC (Something I've come to avoid.) Plus if you decide to get cable later you /still/ won't need to buy a TV, this'll do that too. Of course, so will most of the TV Tuners out there.

AverTV Studio

[TarrVetus]

I've found the AverTV Studio card to be absolutely wonderful. It has great picture quality, S-video input, an FM radio, and a remote. And don't say you won't use the remote--after you use it for a while, you won't be able to go without it. :P You should be able to find it on NewEgg for a good price--that's what I did.

Poor video quality

[MtHuurne]

My TV broke down while I was in the middle of playing Final Fantasy X. I tried connecting my PS2 to my Hauppauge TV card. This is a very decent card for watching TV, but I was unable to get a good PS2 image from it.

The first problem is that the card can only capture composite video. The PS2 used to be connected to my TV with an RGB cable and compared to that, composite video is really a step back. I read that S-video does provide acceptable image quality, but my card isn't able to capture that.

The second problem is that most (all?) PS2 games use an interlaced video mode. TVs are made to deal with interlaced video and therefore it looks reasonably well. Capture cards have more trouble dealing with interlaced video. The default playback mode shows some nasty interlacing artifacts when there is quick movement in the video. I tried using MPlayer to run a deinterlace filter over the video, which gave a much better picture, but now the latency between the PS2 sending the video and my PC display increased so much that action games became difficult to play.

The third problem is specific to my setup: I have a TFT monitor. I love it for coding and browsing the web, but it's not ideal for video. A TFT has a fixed resolution, so the video had to be scaled to that which made it even more blurry than it already was. The colors of a TFT are different and PS2 games were designed to look good on TVs. And finally TFTs are slow to react to fast changes in the video.

The fourth problem is that the refresh rate of the PC monitor is not equal to the refresh rate of the PS2. If the captured video is not synced to the PC vsync, tearing occurs. If it is synced, latency increases and the framerate becomes irregular.

So I would suggest that you buy the capture card at a shop that lets you return it if you're not satisfied with the result. The solution I found was to connect my PS2 to my 15-year-old home computer RGB monitor; I got much better video quality than on my PC + TFT.

cheap and/or easy.

[mushroom blue]

if you're looking for cheap, but with lower resolution, you can't go wrong with the ATI TV Wonder card. they use the bt868 driver, and are a dream to work with in linux. they were actually EASIER to use in linux than in Windows XP, as the drivers didn't suck sour frog butt. I got mine on pricewatch for around $40.

if you're going for quality, check out the Hauppage PVR 250 cards. two of these (for picture-in-picture, or recording different channels) work magic when dealing with digital-quality streams. they're more expensive, but the picture quality is absolutely incredible.

My experience - steer clear of ATI AIW's

[Ixe]

I got an All-in-Wonder Radeon several years ago and my experience wasn't very good. It was limited even in windows for a few months until they got their driver act together. In Linux there's a project called gatos I think to work w/ these cards, but last time I tried it was a lot of work and I couldn't get it to work right. Look for something standard, for example a WinTV (=Haugpauge/bt848/whatever) - they work great everywhere, even in Linux for TV tuning, but as for actual capture I'm not sure the best way to go is.

I strongly advise against getting a capture card that's integrated w/ your video card though -- Just my two cents.

Digital TV - Why is everyone still talking analog?

[quenda]

I recently replaced my BT878 card with a DVB-T card, and its great. You get widescreen and HD channels. No interference. Just save the mpeg2 stream straight to disk, stream it across the network, or pipe to a player. Its not the easiest way to watch live TV, but perfect for a PVR.
This is in Australia, where analog and digital are broadcast in parallel. Cable is still analog, but not very popular. UK is better, with extra channels on digital. Berlin just turned off analog.
Whats the problem in North America?

For DVB drivers (now in 2.6 kernel), see http://www.linuxtv.org/

As said before, if the OP doesn't watch TV, he can see the game-console via DV and firewire.

ditto. I run dScaler and its great.

[bigmoosie]

I haven't tried any of the record options but dScaler works under windows, I haven't tried it under linux.

My card is an old old pci card. It is an AIMS Highway eXtreme from circa 1993. It can only capture 320x240 but it is very good at play back. BTW it is off the BT8x8 chipset.

I've used windows media encoder and while on a university 10 mbps half duplex network I was able to stream from a VHS tape (coaxle input) on a celeron 533 with 384 megs of ram and win2K. I had upto 10 connections and no lag streeming audio & video to the network for wednesday night movies. :-D

I think video4linux works well with this card. Knoppix linux has quite a few video options including streaming video for many cards. The bet part is its a live cd.

~ryan

Re:PC is the way to go (WRONG!).

[magullo]

>There are only 2 (serious) editing programs:
>Avid and Final Cut Pro.

I don't know about serious, but Zwei Stein is free and kicks ass.

I'll concede that it is oriented to the cheapo rather than pro market.

I'v had a lot of trouble with the radeon 8500dv

[wolf_m16]

lots of tech support emails... and little support in linux.

sometimes video out works, somtimes tv in (coax) works... sometimes not

Re:+7 awe-inspiring genitalia

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Mother mother fuck. Mother mother fuck fuck. Mother fuck mother fuck.
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Smokin weed, smokin weed.
Doin' coke, drinkin beers.
Drinkin beers, beers beers.
Rollin' fatties, smokin blunts.
Who smokes the blunts? We smoke the blunts.
Rollin' blunts and smokin um'

15 bucks, little man, put that shit in my hand.
If that money doesn't show then you owe me owe me owe.
My jungle love.
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I think I wanna know ya know ya ... yeah, what.

AVOID THIS CARD!!!

[applerules]

I receved a 3Dvision card for christmas. The driver CD dosen't work. The manual is in very poorly translated english. One instruction even says to power on the machine before installing the PCI card. The card has no tech support or website. I managed to find the missing driver files by using the install wizard in Windows, and searching for the files it requested on google. -philip.

Here are links.

[Futurepower(R)]

Thanks for the suggestion. Here's a link: Egghead Leadtek tuner cards. Here's Leadtek's description: WinFast TV2000 XP.

DVI input

[KrizDog]

Anyone seen a card with DVI input? My cable box has a dvi output that I currently use to feed my tv. I noticed it looks much better than when I was using the component video cables. As far as I know DVI is an uncompressed digital video siginal so in theory should be rather simple to make.

Been there done that.. TV cards stink...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.viewsonic.com/products/video_box_nextvi sionn4.htm

check that out.. works alot beter then tv cards..

Hauppauge WinTV Go

[geminidomino]

Despite the name, I use this card a LOT in linux. Until recently, I did run my PS2/Gamecube off of it, and it works fine with XawTV and WebVcr+. The only issue I had was in playing video games, it was very *dark*. Soul Reaver 2 and LOK: Defiance are dark enough without needing help. ;) This could also just be an xawtv issue, and not have anything to do with the card itself, I don't know, but other than that, the WinTV Go works like a charm under Slackware 9.1

Avoid ATI like the plague

[Sabalon]

Others have said this, so make this one more suggestion to avoid ATI like the plague. Yes, you can play 3d games on them, but the video i/o support sucks to put it politely. There is no official support from ATI for TV I/O, all they care about is people can say that ATI plays Quake fast.

There is the GATOS project to deal with the video in/out issues. If you are lucky you may get something out of GATOS to work, however while I have respect for the people working on it, a major uphill battle, stuff rarely works, finding any sort of documentation or useful info is nigh impossible, and it is generally flaky all-around. Not something that you'd want to risk Dexter and Jak's life (or whatever is on the PS2) on :)

Real estate isn't cheap

[tepples]

dude just go get a freaking tv they are dirt cheaop

Apparently, TV sets are not cheap once the prospective owner has factored in the cost of real estate. See Dagowolf's comment for details. In addition, it's hard to find a tunerless monitor with just composite, S-video, and SCART/component inputs; some national governments require all owners of a tuner to pay an annual fee to a government-sponsored broadcast network.

Re:Real estate isn't cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what a TV tuner card has in it Mr. Tax man.... A TUNER!

Re:Real estate isn't cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

A video in card doesn't. It doesn't matter to me because I live in the US, but I've owned one video input card with just composite, and one with both composite and RF. Only the RF one would need a TV license in the UK.

Stationary image was the key

[tepples]

CRT projectors are bad with any stationary image. Until sometime in the 1990s, only game consoles displayed stationary images such as health meters and scores for any length of time. This changed when stations added three things: a score HUD on sport programming, headline tickers on cable news programming, and network identification bugs in the lower right corner of everything else.

As far as I know, the newer LCD and DLP projectors don't seem to have as much of a problem with stationary images.

Re:Stationary image was the key

[ender's_shadow]

gotcha. thanks.

Avermedia / Brooktree 848

[thelizman]

For just plain TV (erm, cable too) I've been using an AverTV card (www.avermedia.com). It's no frills, PCI based, and you need to connect it to your sound card via a jumper. But, it's based on the Brooktree 848 card, which you can use with your native Kernel and the Video4Linux subsystem. For the tuner software, you can use the default XawTV that comes with most applications, but I highly recommend TV Time (tvtime.sourceforge.net). It's very high quality with high reliability, low system foot print, a tidy on screen display, intuitive features, and it interfaces with XML TV to display channel information. You can also add LiRC support and use a remote control. Now, I haven't had much luck getting PVR software (freevo, mythtv) but that's not the cards fault. Freevo has too much dependancy on other applications, particularly perl modules, and mythtv is handicapped by a shoddy python install. Rumor from the developer of TV Time is that it will eventually include PVR capability.

AverTV is about the cheapest BT848 based unit out there, and they make higher models with stereo and dbx support built in, so you can check those out. I don't even own a TV, and havent for two years. I'm always in front of this damn machine. BTW, the Linux applications are far superior in stability, color, and frame rate than the included Windows software.

Re:Avermedia / Brooktree 848

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue with Avermedia cards is no digital sound. In order to get sound you have to connect a audio output jack on the card to a sound card. This prevents you all sorts of problems with MythTV. If your going to set up a PVR using MythTV, don't bother with Avermedia.

Re:Avermedia / Brooktree 848

[ClioCJS]

In my case, my AverTV card displayed annoying vertical stripes across all of the captured video.

Background: I've captured over 300G (compressed) of video -- some 1000+ tv shows -- using mostly ATI Radeon cards. My drivers broke and I bought an AverTV for $54. NOT WORTH IT. Now I've bought a Hauppauge and I'm going to try it out.

It is a fun thing to do, but...

[archivis]

once you start it is hard to stop...

I began by watching TV in a little window on my desktop...and now I'm scrambling to find a comp with decent CPU to run MythTV on so I can do the PVR thing - sadly my old box doesn't quite have the horsepower to do the encoding.

But one day! One day soon!

ATI's been kinda helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an ancient ATI All-in-Wonder Pro 128. I'm using it w/ Linux and the Gatos drivers for TV. It seems to be working rather well.
All those name-brand cards with the "generic" bt848 / bt878 chipset seem to work well cross-platform, too.

DV = 13GB/hour = not a good solution for tv

[StandardCell]

Standard DV is 25Mbits/s which translates to roughly 13GB per hour. It's roughly equivalent to Motion JPEG or I-frame only MPEG2. Depending on how much TV you want to store, you could be looking at less than 20 hours for your average 250GB hard drive.

It's not over yet, however, as you have to then transcode it into some other useful format. If it's DVD, then you'll need MPEG-2. On the average machine, you can encode MPEG-2 in real time (29.97fps) at Constant Bit Rate, but Variable Bit Rate is even slower. If you want CD DivX/3ivX files, you'll be encoding even slower. Now multiply that by the number of hours of tv you have, and you'll see that there's a major logistical problem here.

The saddest part is that going to an ATI All-In-Wonder card that encodes MPEG-2 on the fly will pretty much guarantee you audio sync problems on long captures. It's not a real solution to me if you have to sit there and resynch all your audio to your video, and ATI and it's incompetent tech support has basically ignored this problem since the beginning.

In effect, you're left with almost no reliable choice in tv video recording except one: get a Tivo/ReplayTV box with a big hard drive and an Ethernet connection, suck the MPEG-2 files from that box into your computer, and burn them onto DVDs or convert them to DivX files. It won't be the highest quality, but it really is the only practical solution IMO. I deal with audio/video editing for a living now, and this is all I can recommend to all but the most hardcore user as the best solution.

Re:DV = 13GB/hour = not a good solution for tv

[sakusha]

You should read the question. He primarily wants pass-through video, not recording. He just wants to watch what's on his game box or TV tuner through his computer monitor. That requires 0GB per hour. The capture option is just a bonus.

ATI AIW cards have major audio sync problems

[StandardCell]

Go search Google on ATI All-In-Wonder audio sync, and you'll see that there are problems, especially on long captures. There's no real reliable configuration to alleviate this problem, and ATI has refused to deal with this problem pretty much since the first AIW cards were released. If you have the time and patience to manually re-sync your audio to the nearest frame, be my guest. Otherwise, forget about this solution.

Re:ATI AIW cards have major audio sync problems

[Utopia]

I never had any audio sync problems with my AIW 9000.
The longest show I have recorded was 2 1/2 hours and the recording was perfect.
I usually record in mpeg2 at the highest possible resolution and quality; and use windows media encoder to compress it if want to watch it again at a later date.

Maybe sync problems happen if recording is done to non mpeg2 based formats.

Re:ATI AIW cards have major audio sync problems

[Mister Transistor]

I think you may have something about recording in MPEG2 format. I have run an AIW 8500 for about a year now, and I have recorded and processed literally TERABYTES of video information, and never had any audio sync problems, even on 6-8 hour captures (yes, I fell asleep recording :) Also, I have a buddy who has the exact same setup and he has had zero problems as well. We're using 900 Mhz PIII based Compaq's as hosts, running Windows 2K.

I HAVE had major audio synch problems using Pitiful (Pinnacle) Video Studio 8 with their AV/DV capture card. Their software stinks. It crashes regularly, and has major audio synch problems. Their best solution from their knowlegebase (and I kid you not here) was to go get a shareware capture utility called scLive (Scenalyzer Live) which works flawlessly. Unbelievable! If I didn't get the Pinnacle suite for free, I'd be MAJORLY PISSED and returning that crapware.
I now use Ulead Video/Media Studio, which is nice and easy to use, good for newbies. I also use Virtualdub and tMPGenc for more advanced tricks like logo removal, etc.

Will said TV have video in?

[Mal-2]

All I've seen in thrift stores is old (but functional) TVs that are tuner-only. In order to use such an old beast with the PS2, he'd also need an RF modulator... or a VCR, which doesn't have to work for anything else.

I've used a broken VCR as a cable box at more than one place. I'm using a working one now, and it gets maybe 10 hours of tape use a year. It also serves as the RF modulator when I run the TV out from my video card. It wouldn't deal with Macrovision I'm sure, but I don't need it to.

Mal-2

I'm using ati 8500dv now and I regret it!

[chocolatetrumpet]

I just have to mention,

the 8500DV has this connector for a breakout box. The connector for some reason keeps coming off and the pins are all bent. Of course, if you plug it back in hot it freezes the system.

Also, the video quality on my 8500dv is noticably blurrier than my matrox g450.

I'm running win2k and when you close the tuner app it doesn't really "close" so you constantly have to force quit and run it again.

Go for the hauppauge.

Re:I'm using ati 8500dv now and I regret it!

[jeffskyrunner]

yea, the connector for the breakout box never seemed to attach securly into the back of the card. I never had the pins bent though, but then I usually don't put it in and out, or move my computer.

The 8500dv at the time was the highest AIW and it had a remote, which was very appealing to a lazy guy like me. And i needed a new video card, so it all came into play for me.

If you have a bunch to spend ,go for the 9800 AIW, I hear those work really well.

Wrong - PCs are just as adept at editing as Macs

[StandardCell]

Folks in the NLE world are so enamored with Macs that they really don't give the credit to PC editing as they should. The new Adobe Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas 4.0 are both more than capable of editing High Definition. I can build you a Premiere Pro- centered editing box consisting of a Bluefish 444 Iridium XP uncompressed HD capture card, Medea Fiber Channel or SCSI disk array, dual Opteron or Xeon workstation board with a couple of gigs of memory and all the other odds and ends for about $25k out the door. Mind you, this may not afford many real-time effects, but for that you have to go to $150k+ Avid HD workstations or even more expensive Discreet stuff to get that. I will stand it against any Apple solution in its price range, however.

What you also glance over is that many editors do offline editing on Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro on their own time, then export an EDL or Editor Decision List file and rent time on a real online editor like a Discreet at a post facility at some exorbitant sum per hour and have the final editing done there. In that sense, FCP offers no real advantage over Premiere Pro because it's the same information that's getting transmitted via EDL anyway.

Believe me, PCs are more than capable of editing. The Apple FCP hype is just that - hype. That Avid is a broadcast industry standard is certain, but the prices of Avid's truly professional products start out at around $30k for Standard Definition and skyrocket from there, and even Avid Xpress Pro software isn't a comparison to its standalone editors. There are plenty of good PC-based editors to do anything from a basic DV-based workflow doing basic tv commercials and wedding videos all the way up to uncompressed HD that involve neither FCP nor Avid products. Both PCs and Macs have their merits, but neither is so vastly superior that one could entirely exclude the other.

Pinnacle PCTV Pro

[Mondor]

Being system administrator of multimedia company, I have to work with stereo TV and FM capturing every day. I have more then 40 cards, working 24/7 under Windows XP and Mandrake Linux 9.1. So all of them are from Pinnacle, we have two models, PCTV and PCTV Pro. The difference is in FM tuner, only Pro model have it. There is a CD with very nice TV and FM receiver, all cards are equipped with remote control. This is a very good card, probably the best you can find, and I advise it very much.

analog-to-DV converter

[penguin7of9]

The least hassle in my experience is analog video to DV "bridges". You plug them into your computer's FireWire port. They make analog video look like it comes from a digital camcorder. There are several manufacturers and they all output standard digital video that Linux, Windows, and Macintosh understand. It's a format that video editors generally understand. It's not as highly compressed as MPEG2, which may be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on your application.

My kids did this for years

[realkiwi]

We have a Macintosh Centris 660AV. It died recently but the kids used it for watching movies (using a VHS recorder) or watching sat TV via a radio transmiter/reciever box. They also plugged all sorts of different consoles into the VHS recorders second input plug. Remember this is "crummy" 10 year old Apple technology...

We also have another solution: both my hush and the satellite receiver are plugged in to a Samsung 150 MB TFT. This model also exists with a TV tuner but with two video inputs plus SVGA it is quite versatile. Many happy hours of PS2 playing have been had on this screen. I am looking at a 17" 16/9 Samsung TFT TV with XGA in to replace it in the living room (I am a bit cramped in 1024x768 pixels).

Chips with good open-source support

[robhancock]

As many have mentioned, cards based on the the Brooktree/Conexant BT848/BT878 chips seem to be well supported both in Linux (with BTTV) and with free software/drivers in Windows (like DScaler).

The newer replacement for the old Brooktree chips is the Conexant CX2388x series, used in cards like some of the Hauppage cards, the Asus TV Tuner and MSI TV@nywhere. These chips have a number of improvements - for example, better support for high-res capture (up to 754x480), and it also has a real comb filter in it (BT8x8 has just a crappy notch filter like a 15-year-old TV, apparently) which makes a difference in image quality from RF or composite sources. DScaler includes support for these chips now, and there is a Linux driver available, though it seems to be a very early version.

Re:Hauppauge WinTV

[jsebrech]

Another voice for the 8x8 based hauppauge cards. I've got a wintv from 98-99'ish (don't remember exactly when I bought it). It has always worked flawlessly. Excellent picture quality. The windows software isn't all that great, but it suffices, and in linux there is the most excellent tvtime (which beats the crap image-quality-wise out of the widescreen 100hz tv my dad has).

WinTV Go! chipset issues

[spray_john]

Although a lot of people will tell you that you can't go wrong with a regular PCI winTV card, beware some of the more recent ones if you're a linux user. They use a new connexant chipset that is not supported by the well known and stable bttv driver, but only the very raw cx88 driver. cx88 requires v4l2 in your kernel, which means patching a 2.4, or using a 2.6.

I'm about to head home having gotten one of these for xmas, and anticipate some long hours getting it working :-/

Would the situation be different...

[Futurepower(R)]

Your answer is interesting to me, even though it contains information not asked for in the Slashdot story. Would the audio sync situation be different with some other method of coding?

Warning: : Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[AftanGustur]

I saw a reference to Hauppauge on slashdot, and guess what ? I bought one PVR-350..

Only to discover that it doesn't work with my MSI K7N2-L motherboard.. And when looking for the problem I found that Hauppauge does not recomment it's useage with VIA based motherboards (basically all motherboards with a AMD processor).

So my advice is to stay away from Hauppauge if you have a AMD CPU (like almose everyone I know).

According to websites, the Hauppauge PVR can work with **some** VIA based motherboards with the latest drivers and some BIOS tveaking (Disable CPU-to-PCI command buffering)..

Just my 240 Euros ...

Re:Warning: : Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[geminidomino]

Is this all Hauppauge cards or just the PVR-350? I haven't had any problems at all with my WinTV Go (WinTV card w/o FM radio support) on my Asus Athlon MB, (VIA chipset) out of the box with Slack 8.0 or later (never tried with earlier)

Re:Warning: : Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[swb]

I tried a 350 about a year ago with two different systems in the office (an HP P3 700 and a Dell P3 1.03 Ghz), and both times the card performed very poorly, 100% CPU usage during capture or playback, with the UI of the applications nearly unusable.

I used both the drivers from the package and some special "beta" drivers Hauppauge provided, and same results.

I would not recommend one of their products for this reason alone, but I also found their included software poor -- a "hodge-podge" if you will, that was low quality.

Re:Warning: : Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[swankypimp]

Four years ago when I upgraded to an Athlon 800 with a VIA chipset I couldn't get my WinTV Go to work. Back then Hauppauge had a disclaimer on their website saying that their cards were tested with Intel chipsets, and that any incompatibilities were due to VIA choosing to not be 100% compatible with Intel's standard. (Yeah, right. Sounds like they just didn't want to test it on other platforms.) A couple years later I upgraded to a 1600+ and SiS chipset board and it worked again. If I were you, I'd double check the store's return policy before I buy a Hauppauge card for a non-Intel chipset board.

Re:Warning: : Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Spoke]

I'm using a PVR-250 right now with great success on a MSI KM2M Combo-L (Via KM266 chipset). Try the latest drivers, they've had a lot of bugs fixed in the last few months which have made the work work a LOT more reliably.

Re:Warning: : Hauppauge PVR-250/350

[Dahamma]

AMD isn't the problem, VIA is. VIA's chipsets are known to have problems with PCI busmastering on a lot more than just the Hauppauge cards. So if you have a VIA based board, you may have issues, but I have used the card under Linux EXTENSIVELY and it has worked great with nVidia and SiS based boards.

Moo

[Chacham]

This Christmas reminded me of the times when you were a child

Wow! What was i like as a child?

G400 eTV

[cgleba]

The G400 eTV is a nice card:

see here

• Dual-head with tv-out so you can have a movie display on the TV while working on your monitor
• Very good high TV-out quality (some say it is one of the best out there)
• You can pick it up cheap on ebay
• Perhaps the best supported graphics hardware under linux
• Special support in mplayer for beautiful movie display
• Hardware MJPEG compression for capture
• Nice break-out-box with RCA in/out as well as svideo in/out
• All this in one AGP card

Drawbacks:

• Current Linux driver does not do DMA for plain v4l (non-MJPEG) capture -- it does memcpy() which is CPU intensive. I'm looking to add support to the driver at some point when I finish reading the SPECS.
• Capture driver does not play well with the framebuffer driver. Again I'm looking to help fix this at some point

The nicest thing about the card is that specs for most of the chips are avaiable if you wish to hack it.
To see more about the linux support:

See here.

A Question for other bttv users out there?

[megabeck42]

I have a ATI TV Wonder VE, its based on a brooktree 878, though I think its using the connexant version of the chip. The problem I have is that the while the signal I'm receiving (coax cable) looks good on a regular Television (Sony Trinitron, a few years old) the captured version is full of noise. The closest example I can find is here:

tvtime screenshots

The noise I refer to is quite noticeable in the full resolution pngs. I'll note that this is no ill reflection on tvtime. Then again, reading about the specs of the BT878, its supposed to have higher fidelity than a television monitor. Hence, I'm confused where I'm going wrong.

Any suggestions?

Pinnacle PCTV Rave

[kristoferkarlsson]

I am almost in the same position as you are in. I bought the Pinnacle PCTV Rave a few days ago and started playing with it today. I got it to work real reasily in Windows and after that I tried to get to work in Linux (Mepis/Debian).

This was a fairly easy process after a bit of googling on the setup. Note that I am far from a Linux expert and I am a bit proud of myself.

So, after a few hours of editing /etc/modules and /etc/modules.conf and running tvtime-scanner I am now watching TV with all my available channels, well, available! The quality is definitely good enough for everyday watching. The sound is mono and I haven't tried recording yet but I suspect it can't take that many hours to get the hang of.

(I want to setup a system of auto-recording stuff I want to see et.c.)

A Good Thing(tm) is that recent Linux Kernels support this out of the box (I believe it's something like 2.4.22), I didn't have to recompile the kernel or anything like that.

But the best part is that it only costs 399 SEK in Sweden which I suppose is something around $40.

RE: Audio sync...

[StandardCell]

Frankly, there are very few non-professional solutions if any that sync audio to video with any reliability. The Canopus ADVC line is about the only one that I know that does it 100% of the time for only a few hundred dollars. I also rarely if ever hear about audio sync problems on ReplayTV/Tivo boxes, which is probably a testament to its ground-up design rather than relying on someone else's solution. Some people claim that they have no sync problems with ATI AIW products, and that's them. I've heard far too many stories about and had too much personal experience directly with ATI's AIW garbage to deal with it.

Basically it boils down to this: if you want video in with a tuner, get a Tivo or ReplayTV with an ethernet jack and drop them on your computer; otherwise, if you want to capture video for editing purposes, get a dedicated professional capture solution.

Re:ATI AIW Radeon 9x00 (Pro)

[juhaz]

If you're not looking for the fastest possible gaming beast there is, 9800SE AIW is probably a darn good bet, it's dirt cheap (~200), it's 9800 pro with half of the 8 pipelines either not working or disabled, so for tweakers there's also a change to try enabling all (requires only a driver tweak) pipelines and get it working at full 9800 pro speed - for about third of price...

Additionally, the 9600 Pro AIW just came out, it's probably about as fast as "unmodded" 9800SE, perhaps bit more expensive at least right after debut, but features an improved connector setup that allows a second monitor instead of only 1 dvi + tv-out like older 9000 series AIW's.

Both seem damn sweet deals for one who can't afford 9700/9800 np/pro.

Ahhhh OSX !!! Don't forget us

[kentsin]

Are there any external box for OS X? Even some of the usb boxes were not compatible with os x.

buy a tv

[jbplou]

buy a tv it will be more enjoyable for your ps2.

Mental illness alert.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mental illness alert. Anger problem.

I'm glad to see this post

[omegavector]

I've been doing the same things. I only use a 14.1" Kogi LCD flat panel in my bedroom in my parents house. I watch TV on it via my ATI PCI Rage 128. It's really an old card, but it works. I also use Windows ME and Showshifter from Home Media Networks and an ATI Wonder Remote Control to flip channels with. I am trying to cut all ties with anything Microsoft, so I am trying to move to Linux. To tell the truth, it's hard. It's like doing drugs or smoking or eating fast food. I know Microsoft junk isn't good for me, but it's hard to quit. I'm scared and confused. I like watching TV on my computer screen, but I don't know if I can do the same with Linux. Somebody help me! On a more serious note, I like saving space and being able to have a cool, crisp, uncluttered central information/entertainment/communications nexus all on one desktop. LCD makers know this is the future. That's why there are LCD Monitor/TV devices being made by many different companies. The increasing desire for convergence will only fuel this trend. I say more power to you! Your on the right "uber coolness" trek. I want to do the same but with Linux stuff only. Time will tell.