I really need a new ATSC TV Tuner.....

FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

about 6 or so months ago I bought the ATI TV Wonder 650 Pro (aka the Theater 650 pro). The Catalyst media center software works like it was developed in python by twelve year olds. It's not linux-compatible at all. My video card doesn't like vista, and I'm not willing to pay for extra MC software for XP. I'd love to use linux and mythtv.

Question is: Which ATSC tuner would you recommend?

I need:

Linux-friendliness.
Windows Friendliness
ATSC-compatible
I'd prefer PCI or PCI-E over USB, but not totally against USB
Under $150. Be great if it came with a remote.

thanks
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bunder · Bodhisattva Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 5947

i have a pair of leadtek winfast tv 2000xp rm's... they work alright i guess. :lol:

if you don't care about having a hw encoder, they're a low-cost solution to recording television. :wink:

cheers

edit: i haven't gotten the remote working, but a patch to bttv-input.c is supposed to fix that. and you have to use the "loopback" cable, as i could never get btaudio (bt878) working either.

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FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

That one isn't ATSC, though.

I'm looking to record OTA HDTV.

thanks though

bunder · Bodhisattva Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 5947

ah, my bad... i'm new to the tv-tuner scene. :lol:

Moved from Off the Wall to Kernel & Hardware.
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FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

no problem.

thanks for the move. postcount++

I've heard about a few tuners that are linux-friendly, but I believe they were USB, and my USB buses are packed between my external drive, keyboard, mouse, guitarport, and remote control, I don't think the bus can handle the added bandwidth of atsc HDTV...
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Drewgrange · Guru Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 483 Location: Ohio, US

I am using a pcHDTV-5500 and love it.

It was built FOR linux, which was entirely the reason I bought it.

I use it for QAM signals through my cable though, so I can't comment on how good the cards are at picking up OTA signals. I'm looking around at cards on newegg and there seems to be a hauppauge ATSC card for less than a pcHDTV-5500, but you might want to look into whether the tuner on it is linux supported or not (I believe the ivtv drivers for my old hauppauge PVR-250 had to be reverse engineered).

EDIT:

Sorry, just noticed you mentioned windows friendliness as something you'd want. I might look more closely at the hauppauge after making sure there are linux drivers. I had good luck with my PVR-250, they seem to make good cards.

FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

windows-friendly isn't a must if i don't need it as a fallback plan

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

speeddemon · Apprentice Joined: 27 Sep 2003 Posts: 162

mdmnchr · n00b Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 52

I own a pcHDTV-5500 and it seems to work okay with OTA HDTV (ATSC). Video is a little choppy, but that could just be fglrx.

I would jump right to the kernel drivers. I couldn't get the provided modules to work.

As another note:

I'm not sure were you are located but I've not been able to get xine-lib > 1.1.4 to read the channels.conf seems there is a bug with NTSC.

I dual boot windows for gaming and have had 0 luck setting it up under windows.

Seems to me that there are cheaper alternatives that probably work just as well.

tld · Veteran Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Posts: 1852

tld · Veteran Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Posts: 1852

A few other things...

One great thing about recording ATSC is that it records right off the tuner as-is. It requires a LOT of disk (one hour of HD can average 4 to 6 GB), but recording barely wakes up the CPU, as there's no need for any encoding. One time when I was recording HD shows on all three tuners and was watching a fourth (previously recorded) HD show from the frontend, I checked the backend and the CPU was at 1%. Now if you want to try doing commercial skipping on the backend that's a whole other matter, and you'd need all the CPU you can get...I don't bother with that.

The HD-5500 is standard PCI (not PCI-E). As a matter of fact, since I wanted three tuners, I was glad I happened to have that Dell 4600, as new machines with three PCI slots (rather than a mix of PCI and PCI-e for example) seem hard to find.

The HD-5500 has no remote of any kind...I just use a serial receiver. I bought one of these:

http://www.irblaster.info/receiver.html

...and used with with lirc and LIRC_DEVICES="serial" in my make.conf and it works perfectly. I just used a Phillips Tivo remote that you can get on ebay for like $10. I had to get a little creative with button assignments, but it works just great.

Tom

Drewgrange · Guru Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 483 Location: Ohio, US

It should be noted that the pcHDTV 5500 card does have an IR receiver on it. It isn't supported out of the box, though people have had luck getting it to work on the official forums on their website.

The card doesn't come with its own remote, but as long as you have the receiver you can use most any remote control. It'll be a pain to set up on your own (I have a hard enough time getting my hauppauge PVR-250 remote that is fairly well documented working).