[mythtv-users] About to buy a tuner card that isn't well discussed, thoughts?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 08/09/2006 01:18 AM, Chad wrote:

>I have been looking at alternative "hardware" encoding cards to the
>Hauppauge flavors.  There doesn't seem to be a 'good' document on any
>of the alternatives, so I guess I'm either on my own (buy one, try it.
> Buy another try it...) unless others have some info I haven't found.
>Specifically, the next card I'm looking at getting to test with is a
>PowerColor T55E-P03 PCI-x (x1) card.  It claims hardware encoding (and
>from it's system req's I'd guess it actually does) but I don't know
>how well linux support is for the chipset on this card.  The chipset
>is an: ATI THEATER 550 PRO according to the website.  I assume I
>should be googling the chipset rather than the card, but there still
>doesn't seem to be a lot of info on the chipset and linux...
>
>If nobody has any info, no problem, I'll be the guinee (sp?) pig.
>However, if someone has some info on this card and linux, I'd like to
>hear about it!
>  
>

I'm guessing Linux support is pretty much (or completeley) non-existent 
for that chip.  If anything, you may get a Gatos-style capture 
support--which is not V4L, so won't work with Myth.  See
http://mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.1 in the section "Video 
Capture Device" under "Frame Grabbers" where it says:
NOTE: The ATI All-in-Wonder cards (which are not the same as the ATI TV 
Wonder, TV Wonder VE or TV Wonder Pro) will not work as a MythTV capture 
device because the GATOS http://gatos.sourceforge.net drivers that are 
available provide only a limited subset of the V4L API. The TV Wonder 
series of cards are supported by the Bt8x8 Video4Linux driver.

(The All-in-Wonder cards also use the Theater chips.)

Mike