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Which HDTV Capture Card?

Posted by Cliff on from the who-needs-those-free-gigs-anyways dept.

BenderMan asks: "I would like to purchase an HDTV capture card for a *nix based home PVR project. My criteria is that the card support (or be capable of in future firmware) Encrypted QAM, and that the card ignore the broadcast flag. I'll need to make my choice before July 1st, 2005. Of the few cards available that support HDTV, 64/256-QAM support (needed for cable broadcast) is spotty and it's not clear which cards currently ignore the broadcast flag. Can Slashdot readers provide any insight on the FusionHDTV, the MyHD MDP-130, and the HD-3000 cards, or any others I have overlooked?"

3 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. HD3000 by Stoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've tried the ATI HDTV Wonder, and the pcHDTV HD3000.

    Obviously the ATI is out because it doesn't have linux drivers, and even the windows drivers are a bit iffy.

    The HD3000 is great though.

    Delivery was fast, I got the card the day after I ordered it.
    Driver installation is easy, just follow the instructions and away it goes.

    As for the software, I only really use the cli command getatsc, give it a channel and it just starts outputting an mpeg stream.
    You can then play that back or re-encode as you see fit.

    Broadcast flag is ignored, and I believe they're working on QAM support for it too.

    1. Re:HD3000 by ReeprFlame · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ATI's software always seems to be a bit sub-par. I didn't even know they made HT TV tuners to begin with, but I guess that makes sense. I have an ATI TV tuner in my GFX card, but just don't go that route [if you had the idea]. Go for the pure card that makes sense to you to record well and is made by a known company...

      --
      _

      Free 27" Sony WEGA TV

  2. Firewire? by green+pizza · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This doesn't really help the original poster, but isn't it possible to use an external HDTV tuner (like the kind that a lot of HDTV monitor owners had to buy) and then connect it to your HTPC via Firewire and record the video that way?

    From what I've seen, most of those tuners also have a serial port for changing the channel, etc, so that could be connected to the HTPC as well for control. Using DirecTV with ReplayTV is similar, you can use either the IR blaster to control the DirecTV box or you can connect the two with a serial cable.