On 9 November 2012 20:52, Dr A. J. Trickett <adam.trick...@iredale.net> wrote: > Hi, > > > > Every now and then I think I may get a DVB tuner for my computer. Now that > Hannington has been upgraded to HD I could even watch/record stuff in HD (in > theory) on my computer - our TV is still ye olde CRT. > > > > The Hauppauge PCTV Systems DVB-T2 290e nanoStick HD is apparently supported > in Linux on 3.0 Kernel and above. It's also not so expensive on Amazon and > other online retailers. > > > > Questions: > > > > 1) Do these kind of devices actually work? is the signal strength in > Hampshire strong enough to get a decent picture without a proper external > aerial? We can see the Hannington transmitter clearly from our house and our > set-top DVB tuner has always claimed excellent signal strength.
If your set-top DVB tuner is happy, the DVB card/usb should have just as good reception. In my house, the TV aerial is in the attic, and not up on the roof. The TV signal works fine through the tiles of the roof. It saves me having to climb onto the roof if anything breaks. > > > > 2) Other than the kernel module, what other software is required? I see that > both VLC and Kaffeine offer up digital TV as a video source. If you want it to record programs while you are out, you really need a program like mythtv or VDR. VDR is probably easier to set up if you have everything on one PC. I have a server/client setup, so I use mythtv. I have also submitted patches to mythtv that allow you to use a DVB-S card in the PC, and plug in a sky tv viewing card, and watch sky tv on a PC. Although I don't use it now, because sky tv content is rubbish now days. > > > > 3) What kind of CPU/GPU is required to render HD video? My desktop PC is a > first generation AMD64 and the graphics card is a last generation basic AGP > graphics card, so neither are whizzy by modern standard. They can playback > MP4 files downloaded from the BBC fine but I wouldn't describe the playback > as perfect. For HD, you will need a video card that has VDPAU or similar API. The performance bottleneck is not the CPU or your graphics card, the bottleneck is the PCI/AGP bus. There are just too many pixels to send over the bus with HD video. VDPAU allows you so send the compressed video stream over the PCI/AGP bus to the graphics card, and then expand it to pixels on the graphics card. Your PC should be able to handle SD video though, which should be acceptable. If you really want HD, I would go for a motherboard with PCI-Express, and a VDPAU capable graphics card. Both AMD and NVIDIA cards have VDPAU type features, although I think the AMD/ATI one has a different name. > > > > 4) I'm in no way attached the USB device I suggested and would welcome > comments about it and of alternatives. I use PCI or PCI-Express DVB cards, so I have no experience if the USB version work well or not. I am currently in the process of reverse engineering one PCI-Express card, so that it works in Linux. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------
