[mythtv-users] Best tuner for Myth/ATSC?

Mark Wedel mwedel at sonic.net
Tue Aug 22 04:39:35 UTC 2017


On 08/20/2017 07:57 PM, A. F. Cano wrote:
> 
> The old OnAir Creator finally seems to have died.  The USB system doesn't
> recognize it any more.  It used to lock up semi-regularly when the temperature
> rose above 73F, even with the fan I had blowing on it for the last few years.
> It looks like the hardware problem got progressively worse and it finally died.
> 
> Of course I tried different usb ports and a different cable.  No difference.
> 
> I don't have cable so don't need any of those features.  I plan to use the
> new tuner exclusively for OTA (ATSC, NYC area).  I would prefer 2 or 3
> tuners and USB 3 as that is what the Liva X provides.
> 
> An amazon search returns quite a few dongle-type units for "Windows PC" or
> "Supports Windows & Android" which makes me suspicious that a lot of the
> processing is offloaded to the PC and requires drivers and/or software only
> available for WIndows.  I'm running Debian on the Liva X and currently Myth
> 0.27 as that is what comes packaged for that version.  I'd rather have a
> plug-in solution rather than have to upgrade Myth.
> 
> If there's no other choice, I'd go with an ethernet-based tuner, but that
> would imply getting an 8-port Gbit router as I'm only running 100Mb/s at
> the moment and I would prefer not to clog up the local network with HD video
> streams.
> 
> Is there a USB 3 ATSC tuner with 2 or 3 tuners that works well with Myth?
> 
> It would be nice if it also had an analog input as I have a camera that
> I actually never got to work with the OnAir unit and mythzonminder, and
> I would also like to digitize old VCR tapes.  This means a hardware mpeg
> encoder most likely.  The OnAir had one.
> 
> I eagerly await any responses.  It sucks not being able to record any more.
> 
> BTW, I did go back about a year and re-read all the threads about modern
> tuners but none seemed specific to ATSC.

  Starting point would like be the linux tv website:

https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_USB_Devices

  IIRC, QAM is used on cable systems, not over the air (8VSB is OTOH).  NTSC is 
the old format (would only be useful now days if you had something like a vcr 
that you wanted to record from and did not have svideo/composite, but it seems 
like most all of those have that feature).

  Note that I haven't used any of them - just passing along information.  Also, 
IIRC, for ATSC, since it is digital and already compressed, all mythtv is really 
doing is moving the data from the tuner to disk - it should not need to much 
processing.  However, a fair number of tuners might very well not have linux 
drivers, and I'm almost curious what 'supports android' would mean in this 
context - is someone really connecting a tuner to their tablet?  Or is it more 
than likely that the bundled (windows) software has some option to be visible to 
android devices.

  Note that I believe a ATSC stream is ~20 Mb/sec, so while would add bandwidth, 
would not saturate your network.  Also, 8 port gigabit switches are not that 
expense (and really, you only need 3 port - 1 for network tuner, 1 for computer, 
and 1 for uplink to 100 mb switch).  Not saying that is the way to go, but if a 
USB tuner does not seem feasible, don't close that option off.



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list