Plextor PVRs Now Support Linux

planetjay writes "Plextor PVRs now support Linux with an open source SDK for their ConvertX PVR external USB TV tuner/encoder This is great news for Linux PVR users who want to use an external device with hardware based MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/DivX encoding in their MythTV or Freevo homebuilt PVR. "Plextor is strongly committed to supporting the Open Source Software movement with free development tools that help speed the creation of next-generation Linux-based video software," said Dirk Peters, director of marketing, Plextor."

Comments

Kudos

[michaelhood]

I keep loving seeing these companies lately who are Doing The Right Thing (tm). Here's to hoping clue is contagious.

Awesome

[SealBeater]

What's nice about this to me is that, since it's USB2 (tech specs aside), you
can take the space that a pci card would have, put a usb2 card in it's place,
and have multiple tuners, since mythtv has support for multiple tuners, case
space considerations are no longer such a factor.

Now, we just have to see if it's any good.

SealBeater

Re:Awesome

[lakeland]

Or just buy a card with multiple tuners. My pvr500 has two, but I've heard of cards with four! That way you don't have to have an ugly USB device outside the case.

Not to take away from what Plextor has done though, this looks like it might be the solution for some people.

Only NTSC tv tuner

[rar]

The sad thing is that the built-in tv-tuner only supports NTSC, so this product is obviously not targeted for europe...

Re:Only NTSC tv tuner

[lutchann]

There are three models of the TV402U: North America, Europe (PAL) and Japan. The difference is the frequency bands that the tuner can receive. Only the NA tuner is supported currently but we'll add support for the PAL and Japan tuners in the next couple weeks.

The M402U is just like the TV402U but without a tuner, and it's also supported in Linux. Both of these devices can accept NTSC or PAL baseband inputs on the S-Video and Composite ports, regardless of the frequency bands the on-board tuner supports.

Re:Any advice on hardware encoders?

[planetjay]

Hauppauge PVR-250 is what I used on mine.

Tivo?

[Manchot]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all Tivos already Linux-based? And didn't they just recently come out with an SDK for third-party users?

Re:Tivo?

[enrico_suave]

" Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all Tivos already Linux-based? And didn't they just recently come out with an SDK for third-party users?"

They do use linux as the base part of the TiVo, but all the juicy stuff is propietary AFAIK.

The SDK is for the home media option only, i.e. to develop applications that reside outside the tivo on a PC, and add functionality over the network... which is pretty cool and people are doing cool stuff already with it, but it's not a full blown access to TiVo's innards...

*shrug*

e.

Re:gee

[enrico_suave]

" Ofcource I've yet to see a company make something compatable with my satalite service. So, in the meantime I'm stuck with the DVR in my Sat Receiver."

you basically can use almost any DVR with an external satellite set top box. You just route the video/audio output of the STB to the DVR/encoding card and use an IR blaster or serial cable to control the STB (i.e. change the channels at the appropriate time)

The only rub really would be if it's an HDTV satellite service, as that's a different wrinkle =)

e.

What's the easiest?

[Kozz]

...or is there no easy way to BYOPVR? I mean, I've heard about MythTV and Freevo and all sorts of hardware, etc, and as much as I think Linux can be a great tool, sometimes it's a royal FPITA to get thing configured & compiled right, make everything work. I'm not a kung-fu master sysadmin, just a guy who's done his fair share of ./configure, make && make install.

If I don't want to fuck around with making sure I've got all the right hardware pieces just perfect, what're my options for buying something pre-built that will work well, no monthly subscription fee, etc?

Re:What's the easiest?

[mjh]

Try KnoppMyth. I don't know if it crosses your threshold of "easy", but it's definately easier than building myth from soruce.

Re:What's the easiest?

[bwcarty]

I'm going to risk saying something positive about Microsoft and say that Windows XP Media Center edition is easy. It's not necessarily cheap, but it works.

You need a compatible TV tuner (Hauppauge PVR-350), a video card with TV and 64MB or more memory, a software MPEG decoder, a DVD drive, a sound card, and a compatible remote ($35 from pcalchemy.com)

XP MCE OEM is available from Newegg, the official MS remote is available at pcalchemy.com.

That's about it. PVR works, the FM tuner on the PVR-350 works, DVD player works, etc.

There are drawbacks, but if you want something easy, there you go. Plus, the Xbox Media Center Extender just plain works.

Re:What's the easiest?

[Cylix]

Just go fetch a DVD Recorder with HD built in.

They have on screen guide data and schedulers.

You also get the added benefit of being able to record a dvd in realtime.

I did a good bit of research on them some time ago and there are some nice models out there. Some of the units are really pricey, but you can get a smaller HD model for 600$.

Besides pricey, the real drawback to a pre-built, ready to roll-out pvr like some panasonic units is they use EPG (Electronic Program Guide) data. So your guide stream has to be sucked out of the video stream. (I'm not sure if its compatible with PSIP (Digital Television guide data protocol).

However, it's been months since I've done any investigation and I'm sure things have changed a bit. I'm sure a casual google search will reveal something for you and I do believe there are a few places selling pre-built media boxes with myth and freevo. *I've even seen shuttle controls, but no one sells them that way*

If open source isn't your thing, you can always go the windows route and try out BeyondTV. However, for all of its features, it only ships with WM9 support for mpeg4 now. (Though I wrote a python script using mencoder to work with BTV to compress using divx) (There was also something off about width/height issues if you weren't using DivX pro)

Having used BTV and MythTV extensively I can say that MythTV really does a great job competing with a commercial app such as BTV.

I like both of them a great deal, but I've currently switched to MythTV and probably will remain a mythtv user for a long time.

Wishful thinking

[hashts]

Too bad none of the HDtv cards out there can decrypt signals from Satellite or cable. Of course thats due to the providers forcing you to buy/rent their own PVRs.

I'd be all over this device if it would work with an HD feed from satellite.

Re:gee

[enrico_suave]

"I read recently (sorry lost the link) that we can't record HD signals from cable or satellite since they are encrypted. The amount of information from an HD feed is huge and with current technology would take a 6GHz CPU to decrypt in real-time."

Well not ALL satellite traffic is encrypted. There's a ton of FTA DVB satellite signals out there... even hidef ones (ok they are pbs, but still... mmmmm NOVA...

There are a few HDTV cards that CAN decode unencrypted QAM signal via digital cable, but that depends on your cable company not encrypting which is hit or miss...

There's also the possibility of pulling the HDTV content over firewire (and controlling the STB via firewire) and I believe the latest mythtv .17 has some preliminary support for such an arrangement, again depending on if your firewire port is enabled and some other factors on your particular STB (although I'm confused as whether they have to have the firewire port be unencrytped or not, or what the regs are, to be honest...)

*Shrug* so I guess you're basically right, but it's not out of the question, but there's not a good legal way to decrypt digital cable (or directV/dishnetwork) like using a CableCard in some HDTV's now...

e.

500gb media center.

[bullterror]

I've been using Windows Media Center edition and I'm going to drop it. First off, it's unstable, having to reboot your TV once or twice a week isn't fun especially when if you don't do it you come home to find it missed your shows. Second, the DRM is really a pain in the neck. MS-DVR isn't hard to convert to a better format but it is time consuming because there's always that extra step of making it into mpeg-2. Saving a show off windows media center is actually harder than ripping a CSS encrypted DVD. (I hate to do the typical MS-bashing but I really have been having a lot of trouble with my media center recently.)

I have been planning on buying one of the plextor units for a while, I like the idea of hardware encoding directly to mpeg-4, and I like plextor products, the have made the most reliable CD burners I've ever owned. I like the linux option, that seems like a good idea, but whatever I do I simply want it to be as versatile as possible, and Windows MCE is not versatile.

Re:500gb media center.

[lutchann]

Everything that comes out of this box conforms to an ISO standard. If the software takes the MPEG4 output and packages it in an AVI with MP3 video, then you have a DivX file. But the hardware itself doesn't output any proprietary video formats.

Hats off to Plextor

[dmouritsendk]

Now this is class, not only are they the first company to release drivers this kind of product for linux, they way they are doing it is truely awesome.

Released under the GPL(this will probertly be included in the kernel pretty soon i guess?), V4L2 support and code samples.

I can hardly wait for gstreamer (and it's v4l2 source element) to get a bit more stable/functional, and stuff like gstsharp gets included in the mono stack. I imagine we'll start to see a hole bunch of neat video applications.

as opposed to Hauppauge's lack of support

[jbr439]

Plextor gets two thumbs up for this. Hauppauge gets thumbs down for not only not providing open source drivers for their PVR-x50 cards, but for not even supplying proprietary drivers. It's due to what can only be described as amazingly valient work on the part of the IVTV developers (and users) that Hauppauge's cards are usable on Linux systems.

Luckily for Hauppauge, there is currently nothing to worry about with the Plextor PVR having a MSRP of $199. But if that price ever comes down ...

what about the broadcast flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was about to buy some pvr cards now rather than later so I don't end up with cards with a broadcast flag prematurely enabled in the cards. Don't be so sure that the manufacturers will wait until the deadline to enable the broadcast flag. They may decide to enable the flag during scheduled downtime rather than wait until a date deadline when they may have no deadline (and orders for different hardware to be built on the same equipment).

What is important is to be able to discern whether this pvr hardware or any of the other pvr hardware has the broadcast flag enabled so you know which ones to avoid.

One of the things that worried me was the pvr pci cards themselves. I'm no expert on pci technology, so the concern is how long before the cards are obsolete? I have some older computers that use the old slot technology (ISA?), and those cards are now useless. Ended up having to buy new cards. From what I've read, the PCI Express slots are smaller and use serial technology, so they are incompatible with the current pci cards. And after PCI Express? PCI-X?

What happens to all the pci pvr cards when the motherboards start including PCI Express? They are already adding the slots. It looks like they are mixing the PCI Express with the regular PCI slots, similar to what they did with the old transition to PCI. The irony is that the pvr cards would benefit tremendously from PCI Express. I've been thinking of buying two over-the-air digital cards, one the air2pc and the other the 3000 card (can't remember the rest of the name right now) so that I spread my risks. I've also planned to buy two pvr-350s, for a total of 4 cards. I already am figuring that the limitation with recording from the 4 total cards simultaneously would be the pci bus (raid would eliminate the hard drive i/o bottleneck).

The reason for sticking 4 cards in one backend for mythtv would be to keep electricity costs reasonable. One of the things I've noticed that many people ignore is the cost of running a computer 24/7. This is the problem with multiple backends for mythtv (and seti@home). If one backend can be used for recording and playback, that keeps the electricity costs at a minimum. Add a second backend and electricity costs double.

I've been watching the mythtv user list recently, as well as the irc channels for mythtv and knoppmyth so I can figure out where is the best place to buy all of the cards, the air2pc, the 3000, the pvr-250/350. It looks like some places are out of stock on them from time to time. And pricewatch is no help. Being out of stock brings up the original worries, that the cards sell out as they are made without a large stockpile, which makes it more likely that the broadcast flag will appear in cards sooner than the deadline because of the reasons I outlined above and because there is no old stock to work off.

The card listed in this post would be better than the pci cards if the hardware has all the functionality of the pci cards. The reason being that the connection, usb, would be more likely to outlast pci slots which are being obsoleted by the pci express. As for whether the bandwidth of usb 2.0 is an issue over a pci slot, I can't speak to that. But it keeps the pvr hardware working when the motherboard/computer becomes obsolete and finally fails.

Thanks, Hollings, and the rest of the Senators for pushing for the broadcast flag. Hope you choke on your campaign contributions and honorariums.

A list of stores to purchase the pvr-250/350 and air2pc and 3000 cards would be greatly appreciated. More than one reliable source would be appreciated as well. And the ir blaster also.

Comments about bandwidth requirements on the pci bus would be welcome also. Thanks.

They have donated one of these to the Myth Creator

[dcgaber]

They donated one of these boxes to the myth creator, and perhaps even more to other developers. They are smart, they want to get to get widespread support out there for their product, and I will maybe add one of these to my next mythbox.

No, it's something totally different

[lutchann]

The encoder is the WIS G07007SB and the board is based on a WIS reference design with improvements made in-house by Plextor. Both the hardware and the Linux drivers are quite stable.

Re:Stereo pal tuner?

[lutchann]

Yes, the PAL model will do stereo (A2, NICAM, etc), I just haven't written the support for it yet. Similarly with VBI, although it's also coming. (Incidentally, teletext support has nothing to do with stereo reception in the audio decoder other than the fact that they're both "fringe" features that are often omitted from cheap products.)