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On Tue, Oct 30, 2001 at 12:33:04AM -0700, Nathan England wrote:
> I'm hoping the linux support is obvious...
> But just incase. I'm looking for linux support only. I don't possess
> anything with a microsoft label on it, so I don't need any help there.

Not a problem -- since the V4L project started, driver support under Linux
for video capture has been pretty good, as long as you stay near the known
chipsets and hardware manufacturers.

> On Mon, 2001-10-29 at 23:37, Nathan England wrote:
> >=20
> > I'm looking for a TV Card for my computer.
> > I don't care so much about video capture, it would be nice but
> > deffinately not a neccessity. I don't want anything real spectacular.
> >=20
> > So I'm curious, is anyone running tv cards?  I used to have an STB TV
> > PCI and it was horrible. It never could pick up a decent signal,
> > broadcast or cable.  I don't watch enough tv to pay for cable, so I'll
> > be using broadcast.

Yep. I'm running a BT848 based card here -- an ixMicro ixTV card, to be
exact. They state it has PC and Mac capability (it's a PCI based card, so
that's not surprising), but the PC driver CD that I got was bad.
Fortunately, since it's BT848 based, driver support in the Linux kernel is
top-notch -- the V4L interface was actually designed around the chip. Thing
is, I haven't been able to see anything decent using XawTV or any other
video capture program yet, since I only just yesterday managed to find a
Coax->Ant. connector. =3Dop

The only problem I can see with the card is that it doesn't have any known
audio mixers, and the volume can't be controlled via software -- it's
line-out only, and they provide a small cable to connect it's output to your
soundcard's line input. Other than that, it's a great little card -- I've
used it for everything from video capture, to watching TV, to beating the
crap outta Kefka in Final Fantasy 3. =3Dop

> > Add in cards are also possible. I have an ATI Rage 128 card, but I have
> > heard lots of horror stories about the All in Wonder pros. Some work,
> > some don't.  And I've read conflicting things on the net about the same
> > model of cards.

Although I don't have any experience with the ATI TV cards, I can say this:
the older cards that they manufactured do not have open-source compatible
specifications, so drivers are still in the unstable development stage. As
such, documentation is downright pathetic at best. Head over to
http://www.linuxvideo.org/gatos to see the current state of the drivers.

> > Any recommendations out there? Or thoughts about what I should look for
> > in a tv card?  (besides waiting for the price to come down more on the
> > DTV cards... and drivers of course!)

Well, if you're going for the old analog stuff, try to get one by a known
company in the business: Hippauge or Miro. If you can't find one by them,
try grabbing a card based off of the BT848 chipset (alias Brooktree 848).

--=20
Thomas "Mondoshawan" Tate
phoenix@psy.ed.asu.edu
http://tank.dyndns.org

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