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Linux-PVR Distribution LinVDR 0.7 Released
Mirko Doelle writes "LinVDR is a very small Linux distribution turning your normal PC with a DVB video card into a rather cool personal video recorder (PVR). 'The Busybox based system requires less than 128 MB disk space and is shipped as compressed bootable CD image (31 MB) with an easy install program. Provided that you have a supported DVB card (Technotrend DVB Premium or Hauppauge Nexus) in your system, you'll get the software up and running running within 15 minutes or less.
LinVDR uses the most recent development version of the Video Disk Recorder software VDR from Klaus Schmidinger. VDR is capable of recording more than one channel per time (as MPEG-2), timeshifting, cutting (with your remote control) and converting the MPEG-2 files into other formats. The 39 plugins delivered in LinVDR extend your PVR to be also a DVD player, DVD recorder, E-Mail reader, Voice mailbox and much more.
Details on the software versions and plugins you can find at the project page. For download, visit the mirror list.'"
Try MythPhone, it's getting close if not there already. Plus it allows video conferencing on your TV.
There's a user community in the US, have a look at http://www.hoochvdr.info/
Basically, it's an approach to build a small, cut to the bone, ready and easy to install VDR Linux distribution.
LinVDR is a complete, breathing Linux system smaller than 128 MB with a complete digital Video Disk Recorder (VDR) / Personal Video Recorder (PVR) and several plugins -- listed seperately below.
For easy access we installed additionaly the browser frontend VDR Admin and a Samba share for up- and downloading music or DVD images with Windows clients.
The base system is Debian Woody compatible (only compatible, not Debian Woody itself!) with the DVB driver from Convergence and Klaus Schmidingers unbeated Video Disk Recorder Software VDR.
All this Tom has mixed smoothly together, and I made the install system and installation programme -- suitable for normal users without Linux knowledge.
OK, sounds good. I have a XYZ tv card and a GeForce 10 with TV out. Lets start.
That's nice you have such expensive hardware, but it won't bring you a step closer to a running LinVDR system. We're here at digital TV, there is no purpose for any analog TV cards.
VDR was designed to work with so-called full featured DVB cards. This is a Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) receiver card originally develloped from Technotrend. Hauppauge adopted these cards and labeled them WinTV DVB-s/C or Nexus.
The important point of this cards: Byside the receiving unit, where you can read a MPEG-2-Stream, they're equipped with a DSP chip working as MPEG-2 decoder and OSD creator. This DSP decodes the steam, overlays the menu and put the result to the composite video out of the DVB card.
This means: You don't need a graphic card with TV out, your full featured DVB card already has one (and only this one is used by VDR).
But you need only one of that expensive (> $150) full featured DVB cards. If you want to install a second one, e.g. to enable you to receive more channels at the same time, you can use a so-called budget card.
These buget cards have no TV out and no MPEG-2 decoder, making them a lot cheaper (around $70).
Type Vendor Model Class Price DVB-S Hauppauge WinTV Nexus-s Full Featured abt. $250 DVB-S TechnoTrend DVB-S Sat PCI
Rev. 1.3, 1.5, 1.6 Full Featured abt. $190 DVB-T TechnoTrend DVB-T Rev. 1.2 Full Featured abt. $250 DVB-C Hauppauge WinTV DVB-C Full Featured abt. $300 DVB-C TechnoTrend DVB-C Rev. 2.1 Full Featured abt. $230 DVB-S Hauppauge WinTV Nova-S Budget abt. $125 DVB-S TechnoTrend Budget DVB-S Budget abt. $90 DVB-T TechnoTrend DVB-T 1300 Budget abt. $110 DVB-C TechnoTrend DVB-C Rev. 1.0 Budget abt. $110
To cut it short: You need one full featured card with MPEG-2 decoder (Technotrend style, supported by the DVB driver of Kernel 2.6) and any number of budget cards (supported by the same drivers). No way to use your graphic adapter or analog TV card, if you're looking for an analog PVR, try e.g. MythTV.
VDR Version and Plugins VDR 1.3.17 with enAIO-Patch and this plugins:
Don't forget Freevo... works great!
I know ATI makes the flakiest drivers in Windows but the hardware rocks.
ATI supposedly has linux drivers but they don't support AIW cards very well. ATI instead refers you to the gatos project which seems to be under-manned.
Until ATI does make linux drivers for AIW cards or puts an ATI engineer on the Gatos project, Linux-based PVRs will continue to be hit and miss in terms of hardware.
last link is not safe for work (and in really poor taste)
MOD PARENT DOWN!
Link to tinyurl.com is the goatse.cx image!
Looks like a Slashdotting has killed the site. Of course, MirrorDot has the pages and the ISO image mirrored.
~Jay
I apologize for the bad English on that website.
What I meant is that you defintively need a DVB card, LinVDR supports only digital TV.
Analog TV cards like Hauppauge WinTV Express or so are not supportet by LinVDR, but there is a chance (and a plugin) for VDR so you can use them as signal source.
We're planning support for Hauppauge's PVR 150/250/350, but it's not rock stable yet, sorry.
Best regards, Mirko
Another Linux-based PVR will allow you to record HD. The catch is that it only records HD over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts. So if you live in an area with HD broadcasts (at the least, most major metro areas in the U.S.), and you have an antenna, you can have an HD-capable MythTV PVR.
The card is the pcHDTV 3000, available at http://www.pchdtv.com/.
The MythTV web site is http://mythtv.org.
For info about HD and MythTV, search the MythTV mailing list archive for "hdtv" or "pcHDTV".
Finally, a step-by-step install guide for MythTV is available here.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
You need at least one DVB card, the cheapest is around $150 (Technotrend DVB-s Premium Rev. 1.3), the one I would advice you is about $190 (Technotrend DVB-s Premium Rev. 1.5).
Everything else you need is a normal PC, so depending on how cool it must look the costs increase.
You can start with an old Pentium 133 or Pentium MMX, no problem -- most of the load is taken by the Full-Featured DVB card and its MPEG-2 decoder. We're using normally a Via Epia ME-6000 and a desktop P4-1700MHz system.
Best regards, Mirko
Hey all,
n dex.en.php i rrors.php
Here's a Coralized copy of the site:
http://linvdr.org.nyud.net:8090/projects/linvdr/i
http://linvdr.org.nyud.net:8090/projects/linvdr/m
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Yes, this project is only for Europe because DVB is the European broadcast HDTV standard. The U.S. standard is ATSC. If you want an internal HDTV tuner card for the U.S. ATI makes the HDTV Wonder, but it has bad reviews. Also, DVB and ATSC are broadcast standards. These tuners won't work with cable or satellite.
> It DOES NOT handle HDTV signals.
You can record HDTV Movies with LinVDR. All you have to do is to add a HDTV Channel to your channel list and set up a timer for it. And, you have to disable processing your output video signal. Your DVB Card can not handle the resolution and will crash. (Reboot of the card needed). If you save the HDTV data stream to your disk without forwarding it to your v/output you can watch the show.
If you do not want to waste disk space you can stream the data to your Local Network (or loopback device) and watch it with mplayer.
I don't know about pathetic, but it is a pain in the ass...also not an insurmountable problem. Spend $25 on a IR blaster and you can have your PVR software change the channels on the external tuner just fine with GB-PVR and I think MythTV.
This project MOST DEFINATELY WORKS in North America and most of the world for that matter. The project works with the DVB standard which is used world wide for digital services. DVB encompasses
/ /www.lyngsat.com/freeradio/index.html
a single standard for Satellite(DVB-S), Cable(DVB-C), and Terrestial(DVB-T) transmissions and includes swapable authorization modules to work with multiple subscription providers and the encoding they use. VDR works with all of them. In north america its almost all satellite and Free To Air services that are available. DishNetwork does use DVB but refuses to authorize their service to any equipment except their own.
There are a ton of channels avaible but whether you like them is a different story. What do they have ? Lots of local network feeds (ABC,CBS,NBC,UPN,FOX etc), Loads of news. Foreign channels (ie not english language or US based.). Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian, South African, Italian, Netherlands, channels from almost all the arabic world, IRAQ, IRAN, Turkey, German,French,Spanish channels from Spain,Puerto Rico,South America,..it goes on and on. Loads of educational, religious, and odd ball stuff. Good if you speak or have an interest in other languages or the rest of the world. HDTV..there used to be quite alot of HDTV channels up there for free..but most of them went encrypted. Now just a handful left open. Channels come and go all the time. But I love it all especially the wild feeds.
To get an idea of what TV and Radio is available for free check out these links and click on your country:
http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/index.html
http:
There are also a handful of subscribtion services availabe. Mostly European, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Korean, and Porn channels. Just buy the subscription module for your channel and pop in your authorization card.
VDR it self is great program. Easy to build, configure, and use. One of the most no nonsense packages around. MythTV, VideoLan client, and Mplayer also support dvb cards under linux. Not as slick or easy as VDR though. Linux DVB api is easy to use and supports the most popular equipment. Getting some of them can be a pain in the ass in the U.S.A depending on what you want.
If you have any questions on VDR, DVB or getting equipment email me.
jonan@callisia.com.
You're wrong. DVB-S *IS* for satellite. Been using it with north american sats for a few years already. What it won't work with is the couple sats companies not using DVB (DTV and *C), or "new" encoding like turbo coded 8PSK (I say new as they're starting to use it, but it's actually already obsolete)
///<sig