[mythtv-users] MythTV vs. Windows Media Center

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/14/2011 04:10 PM, Eric Sharkey wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Ben Kamen wrote:
>> I don't know if I missed the email - but ATI's Linux support in the past has been sketchy..
> When using open source drivers, ATI's cards work better than Nvidia's.
>   When using closed source drivers, Nvidia's cards work better than
> ATI's.  Support for ATI has been improving in recent years.

Pretty sure Brian was talking about trying to use an ATI All-in-Wonder 
for capture.  This won't work because the AIW isn't a digital capture 
device or a hardware encoder or even a frame grabber.  I tend to think 
of it as a "black-hole TV card"--AFAIU, it's designed to tune a channel 
and scale and display the video into a black hole defined on the screen 
(meaning it's meant for live, non-recorded (non-pausable, -rewindable) 
TV.  It /can/ be used as a capture card of sorts by reading the frames 
out of video card(?) memory (thus making it a /very/ convoluted design 
for a frame grabber), but that's really using the wrong tool for the job.

See http://gatos.sourceforge.net/
http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI/AMD

Note, also, that the problem is *not* that MythTV doesn't support ATI 
AIW, but that V4L/DVB doesn't (and can't) support it (cleanly).  And, 
for those who aren't keeping up with FOSS development (and who may not 
recognize the importance of version number information on the Gatos 
page, please check the date on the bottom of the pages.)

Mike