[mythtv-users] OT: DVB/HDTV/Analog tuner cards

[Brandon Beattie]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 11:03:53AM -0700, Leo Przybylski wrote:
> I?ve noticed though that there are a whole slew of digital cards that
> people are talking about using. I don?t know much about them though. I
> noticed people like to use pcHDTV or DVB cards. I looked at the NEXUS and
> pcHDTV cards and I just couldn?t figure out if they supported closed
> captioning well.
> 
> Does anyone know if they support closed captioning?

The hardware/cards do. I personally have never tried it, but there's no
reason that a pcHDTV card for instance wouldn't work.  If someone tries
CC and it doesn't work on HDTV, submit a bug and it will get fixed or
added.  It may be that stations aren't sending CC in HD yet too maybe?
Give me a week and I can check and respond for sure.

> Also, are the pcHDTV or DVB cards only for HD/Digital television or could
> I use it on my analog cable tv signal as well? I plan to go to HDTV pretty
> soon and maybe even upgrade to digital cable for the HD cable stations. I
> just don?t plan to do it right now. I?m just interested in the best
> quality picture I can get with mpeg2 encoding and closed captioning from
> my analog cable signal. Is it possible to do that with DVB or pcHDTV
> cards?

DVB is just a driver interface.  The air2pc only works under DVB and
only does HDTV.  The pcHDTV cards work under DVB, Video4Linux (Which is
still the most stable way of watching HDTV in Myth for just a couple
more months probably) and the pcHDTV cards also can do NTSC or regular
TV.  Myth only supports using a card in one mode (HDTV or NTSC) without
reconfiguring the config for a card.  Sometime ago Myth was hacked to
do both without reconfiguring, but that hack is no longer maintained.

Since video and audio encoding are a broadcasters responsibility for
HDTV, encoding quality is not controlled by a users hardware or MythTV.
If you want good mpeg2 encoding quality for NTSC/standard TV, you can
either use a pcHDTV card and get decent results, or spend ~$100 or more
for an NTSC mpeg2 encoder card.  People who want HDTV and Standard def
TV usually buy a pcHDTV card AND a PVR-250 card.

--Brandon