[mythtv] FYI: Cheap Stereo TV card with remote

[Lonnie Borntreger]

Thanks for the warning Emil.  I will definitely check the return policy.

Did you try it under Windows by any chance?  That's where she'll be
using it.

On Wed, 2002-12-18 at 06:21, Emil Friis wrote:
> A word of warning...
> I bought the Pinnacle PCTV with remote (not the Pro) at
> CompUSA for $30 after rebates some time ago as a second
> tuner card. It didn't take long before I yanked it out of
> the machine again because I seemed to get a really lousy
> picture. At first I thought it was interference between the
> two cards and even tried moving them around in the slots,
> but no improvement. On top of that it didn't seem to support
> btaudio - or at least I couldn't get it to work.
> 
> Last night I tried it out again because of the "I want a
> Clear Picture" thread and compared to my other card the
> quality of the Pinnacle capture seemed horrible. So if
> nothing else make sure you can return it if the capture
> quality is not good enough for you.
> 
> My other card is actually the AverMedia AverTV Stereo - also
> from CompUSA and it works really well at least when compared
> to the Pinnacle card. My only problem with that card - which
> took me most of a week to solve - was that even the newest
> bttv driver (0.7.100) didn't autodetect the card correctly.
> Because of the stereo capability the audio outout ended up
> being the SAP channel. The key is to provide the correct
> audiomux setting for the tuner and after a while I found
> bttools in windows and that gave me the correct setting.
> 
> To get it to work correctly you can do one of two things:
> 
> 1) When loading the bttv driver do the following:
>     modprobe bttv audiomux=0xff44e
>    For some reason I couldn't get it to work from
> modules.autoload and had to do it manually, but that's
> probably due to my limited Linux/modules knowledge.
> 
> 2) This is what I ended up doing. The card gets autodetected
> as a card 13. Download the latest (0.7.100) bttv drivers
> from http://bytesex.org/bttv, untar and in the drivers
> directory open the bttv-cards.c file in your favorite
> editor. In the section for card 13 (approx. line 372 change
> the first audiomux setting to 0xff44e. After that just
> compile and install as per instructions.
> 
> Option 2 worked just fine for me and I'm happy with the
> card. As for the Pinnacle card I guess I just bought a
> remote and IR receiver for $30 minus whatever I can sell the
> card for on ebay.
> 
> Lonnie Borntreger wrote:
> 
> > 
> > CompUSA has a Pinnacle "PCTV Pro Internal PCI TV Card" with
> > a remote for
> > $49.99 after rebate (purchase by 12/18 to qualify).  This
> is
> > a Stereo
> > tuner.  It doesn't say how many channels.
> > 
> > <a
> href="http://mail.telocity.com/jump/http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?tabtype=pi&product%5Fcode=299099#moreinfo">http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?tabtype=pi&product%5Fcode=299099#moreinfo</a>
> > 
> > 
> > They also have "AVerTV Stereo TV Tuner" for $49.99 (regular
> > price). 
> > This has a 181 channel tuner, but no remote.
> > 
> > <a
> href="http://mail.telocity.com/jump/http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?tabtype=pi&product%5Fcode=292417#moreinfo">http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?tabtype=pi&product%5Fcode=292417#moreinfo</a>
> > 
> > I haven't used either of these and don't know what chipset
> > they use, but
> > thought I would pass the information on.  I will most
> likely
> > be
> > purchasing the Pinnacle for my wife's Win2k computer in her
> > office and
> > craft room, since it will give her PVR software for Windows
> > in the
> > package - and is cheaper than buying a TV/VCR.
> > 
> > Lonnie
> > 
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