[mythtv-users] PCI-E Analog Card

[Brian Wood]

On Sunday 24 January 2010 04:24:53 pm Kevin Ross wrote:
> Brent Norris wrote:
> > What I really need right now is what type of card should I be looking
> > at for best support in this PCI-e system that I will be working with
> > at the start.
> 
> Looking over the linuxtv.org wiki, your requirements narrows down your
> choice to one offering, the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800, which has analog
> and digital tuner capabilities, the analog portion is supported in
> Linux, and it has built-in MPEG2 encoding for analog sources, so your
> CPU doesn't have to do it.  But you'd need 10 of them, since it only has
> one analog tuner per card.
> 
> But because it also has a digital tuner built in, if your cable company
> goes purely digital, you won't need to buy new hardware.

Unless they decide encrypt it all, in which case if you used an STB for each 
channel they would probably output analog, so you'd still be OK.

> 
> You may want to do some Googling to make sure people's experience with
> the card in Linux with analog tuning is favorable.  I've never used the
> card myself.

Hauppauge has traditionally been pretty Linux friendly, but it doesn't hurt to 
check.

Since a system like this is a substantial investment, making sure it is 
obsolescence proof is important.