[mythtv-users] Best card for capturing OTA HDTV

Brad DerManouelian myth at dermanouelian.com
Wed Nov 19 18:04:23 UTC 2008


On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:57 AM, Joe_Polvino at elementk.com wrote:

>
> I'm considering building a mythtv box, and want to learn more about  
> capture devices. I currently have a ChannelMaster 4228 that feeds my  
> HDTV, which has a built in tuner and is capable of displaying 1080i.  
> I'd like to get suggestions on cards that can capture HDTV up to  
> 1080i off a coax cable attached to an antenna. I do not have cable  
> nor satellite, just the antenna.

HDHomeRun is a common device. It's an external box that connects via  
ethernet so it's unobtrusive. It's also nice because it has 2 tuners.
I have the pcHDTV-5500 which I'm happy with. It's a PCI device, 1  
tuner and built specifically for linux so they are usually on top of  
it when stuff in linux breaks it - which hasn't happened in a really  
long time.

There's more information about these and others here:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Category:HDTV_capture_cards

> Also, please clarify this: ATSC is already encoded, so is it true  
> that the card itself does not need to do any encoding?

Yes, that's true. The card just needs to tune and send along the  
information it receives. No processing required.


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