theYinYeti Posted March 1, 2004 Report Share Posted March 1, 2004 Hello, I'd like to buy a PCI TV card (with a tuner) to watch TV, and I want to be able to record TV with a picture width of 720pixels (no less) compressed. Oh and less than 150 euro. I've looked, and looked for such a card, but I don't manage to find one I'm SURE of. I find old discontinued cards, or too expensive cards... Can someone please advise me? Yves. (I've tried doing a search but I get an error message because "TV" is unfortunately less than 4 characters long...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted March 2, 2004 Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 Yves, Ive had very limited sucess with SECAM tuners under linux. But I havent persisted that ,much... I have a new, unused one which your welcome to try.... If it works then you can buy the same card...or buy that one and tell me HOW you got it working. Should only be about 5 euros to ship it and its doing nothing at the moment. If it doesnt then just pay the post back to Paris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted March 2, 2004 Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 I have the WinTV-FM, works well. 720 pixels horizontally? TV doesn't have that many lines, sorry. I think the image could be scaled to that and then compressed, but it doesn't make sense and wastes bandwidth/diskspace -- the same bitrate on a smaller image will give a better final result. If you want to search, try the mythtv project and such terms... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted March 2, 2004 Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 I've got a WinTV Theatre card, and it works fine with Mandrake. I've never had much luck with recording video from it, but then I never tried that hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted March 2, 2004 Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 Have you tried some googling under tv card linux ? Here's an example.. http://www.tv-cards.com/linux.php There's a maintained faq out there also.. just gotta find it :) Let us know what you figure.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted March 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 Thank you all for your comments. It seems i'm misinformed... First, believe me, I did a LOT a google. I almost got sick of it. But as I said, most information is not sure enough. I've read reports that newer WinTVs use a different chipset (not bt8x[89]) and are not compatible with Linux software any more. There's now a version-0.0.2 of a driver available, but not stable enough for my use. I've also read reports (rumours?) that newer PCTV have changed the chip for the tuner, a slight difference that make it unusable under Linux... You understand why I'm lost! Now for the resolution, I've read in a magazine from 1999, that watching DVDs on TV was better than on computer screen because (they say): - TV image size is 720x525 in Europe, - DVD image size is 720x480 @30FPS in US, and 720x576 @25FPS in Europe. So, they say, on the TV, the DVD picture fits just right (and we (in Europe) seem to loose some pixels in height!), whereas on the computer, the picture has to be distorted to fit on a 800x600 or 1024x768 screen. More over, I see that the PVR250 (I finally found this one, but it's a bit expensive...) records in MPEG2 at 720x576, which is exactly the DVD picture size! (but not the TV picture size, I realise now as I type). On the other hand, most TV cards record at 388x284. So aRTee, I guess this is what you had in mind when you wrote about smaller picture size. I'll trust you and try and find a 388x284-capable TV card, as cheap as I can find. Do you know of a SURE card I can buy? aRTee, in what month and year did you buy your card? (BTW, MythTV indeed seems to be cool, as well as TVTime). Gowator, I thank you for your kind offer, but I'm a complete newbie where TV cards are concerned, and I wouldn't be able to help, IMHO. Besides, I'm trying to find my answer this week and no later, because I'm alone this week, and when the little family gets back, I won't have time anymore ;-) For a beginning, I'll look for information about the WinTV-FM. That'll be a start. 'later! Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest anon Posted March 2, 2004 Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 Off topic :o theYinYeti . Welcome back, B) I wondered where you went to ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 Sorry, welcome to linux, there is no sure way to see if a card works other than seeing it work. If you're in the EU, you may just buy a card, and take it back if it doesn't work. You can also talk to the salespeople and explain what you want. In any ok shop they will actually let you buy a card and take it back if it doesn't work. BTW if they don't know anything about linux, which is more the rule than the exception, just know this: on win98se I never got my card to work properly -- very often the program wouldn't start, but just tell me the driver was already in use, and when it did start (after many trials and even reboots), there would be no audio. I repeatedly reinstalled win98se (before ditching it and going linux all the way -- years ago), got updated drivers etc, all to no avail. BTW this card works out of the box in any linux I used it with. So just say that you have win98se, and if the card doesn't work with linux, just say you have lots of problems in windows. Well, boot to windows and install the drivers, sure you will get some problems somewhere, then don't solve those (in xp these cards should actually all work fine, if installed correctly), then go back to the shop and say you had OS issues or so.... BTW I got my card in 2001 or 2002.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GodFlesh Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 if you don't like your pvr250 anymore, i'm looking for one ! I'm using a classical wintv with success Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 The one I have is the newer PCTV Rave! However I hear it can be made to work. Perhaps just an urban rumour. Yves, if you wanna TRY feel free. So long as you pay postage BACK I dont mind paying one way. Like aRTee says, the only guarantee is to try it becuase the manufacturers replace the chipsets without warning on the boxes. YOu can TRY taking them back but then they wont ever say it works or not under linux anyway so they probably wont take it back. I actually bought it for the same reason as your research, just that Pinaccle changed the tuner chipset! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted March 4, 2004 Report Share Posted March 4, 2004 Note: this months C'T has an article on linux and tvcards. I actually don't think that it is so hard to find one that works with linux. You could check out magazines where you live. Basically, it shouldn't be too hard to make a deal in a shop -- hey, couldn't you just pop a live cd in a machine with the respective tvcard?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted March 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 Done, well, almost: I have indeed found a vendor that can take the card back if it does not work. So I think I'll go with the WinTV-FM, which has all I want (remote, and stereo) for a small-enough price (last I saw: 69 euro). Thanks again to all. ;-) BTW: as I told (PM) anon already, I've not leaved Linux at all (that's all I have at home), but I don't have internet at work, and no time at home... except this week. I'm glad I'm back this week, more Linux-user than ever (I'm just now doing my first kernel compile! I will test software-suspend; I've been waiting so long for this moment) If only I didn't have to work, I could spend hours on the boards :D Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitor Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 Hello Yves,, With the WinTV-FM do you mean the Hauppauge PVR 350? In the shops here in Belgium they are sold for about 250 €, so if that is the one, please let me know where you found it so cheap. Please keep us informed whether you can get it to work under Linux, whatever the brand is. Ciao, Sitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fearby Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 What about DVB cards? Anyone using one of these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ethraza Posted May 27, 2004 Report Share Posted May 27, 2004 (edited) Hi, i'm from Brazil. Here we have PAL-M. I have a Pinnacle PCTV with remote control and without radio. This works perfect in XP. I'm do like to use in MDK10.1, but I can't. In PAL-M works only the image, the sound come noised. In NTSC the images comes B&W but the sound comes Ok Do somebody knows how can I put this to work and kick up XP? Thanx 4 n F1! Edited January 15, 2005 by ethraza Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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