[mythtv] TV Tuner recommendation

[Chris Lack]

On Friday 31 January 2003 11:04 am, Micah Morton wrote:
> Okay, so I've been looking on Ebay, and I see a lot of 30 dollar ranged
> cards that from what I can tell through google is supported by
> Linux/v4l/v4l2. I'm wondering though what the advantages of a WinTV PCI
> Theatre card would be over all of this. I saw one as low as 125 dollars
> somewhere and can get it cheaper on ebay used, but.. I noticed that it has
> DTS/SPDIF out in composite form, which is one thing i'm looking for.  Now,
> does that mean that DVD's I play will use that same interface? or JUST TV.

Just tv I'm 99% sure, if it even works with the v4l drivers at all.

> I'm a little confused on how that works... I would PROBABLY need a video
> card/dvd decoder card to output ac3/dts 6chan that way. My current
> motherboard has 6chan sound built in with the AC97 driver, and has an
> optional backplane that has optical 6chan SPDIF (which I don't want, I
> want composite), but I'd rather not use the onboard stuff as my experience
> with onboard sound has been not so great in the past (however very good
> with this current Iwill KT266Plus motherboard.) I'm considering purchasing
> all new hardware for this project because I believe its worth it. :)  What
> would everybody recommend. I'm probably going with a Flex-ATX Shuttle
> system for the barebones start.  Then probably a WinTV card, and a GeForce
> with TV-out as it will only have 2 slots, 1x agp and 1x pci.

Most soundblaster lives have a digital coaxial out that can carry ac3 signals, 
not sure about dts (send me a dts dvd and I'll check :] ).  I personally 
think those little shuttle systems are more of a headache than they're worth.  
Even though there's a lot of stuff on the market now called FlexATX, I don't 
think that form factor has ever been standardized, so you never know if one 
FlexATX case or motherboard is compatible with another.  As for the Geforce 
for tv-out, do your homework and get one with a bt869 tv encoder.  I'm not 
sure how the quality is compared to the chrontel but I do know they're 
configurable at the register level where WYSIWYG with the chrontel.