[mythtv-users] Capture Card

[Stephen Worthington]

On Thu, 12 Dec 2019 10:17:36 -0800, you wrote:
 
>What would be really cool is a dual (or more) tuner device with an 
>inboard distribution amp, rather than a splitter.  Of course the 
>manufacturers don't seem to advertise anything about their hardware 
>capabilities, just their "cool" Windoze software.

For anything other than ATSC, you seem to be able to get a TBS 8 tuner
card.  I have two: one for my DVB-S2 (TBS6909) and one for my DVB-T
(TBS6209).  But the DVB-T one (TBS6209) actually handles a much wider
range of standards: DVB-T2/C2/T/C/ISDB-T.  And that seems to be what
the newer chips are doing - a wide range of related standards all in
one chip.  These two cards must have internal low noise amplifiers and
splitters, since the TBS6209 has only one aerial input and the 6209
can be configured to feed all 8 tuners from just one of its four
inputs, which is how I am using it.

https://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs6909-dvb-s2-8-tuner-pcie-card.html
https://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs6209-dvb-t2-c2-tc-isdbt-octatv-tuner.html

But unfortunately TBS do not seem much interested in ATSC tuners and
have only one ATSC card which is using a conventional design where two
aerial inputs feed four tuners, so it likely just uses a splitter on
each input:

https://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs6704-atsc-or-clear-qam-quad-tuner-pcie-card.html

It does do Clear QAM as well as ATSC though.

All TBS cards are supported in Linux, but the support varies.  Some
work with the normal builtin Linux drivers, but that is a small
minority.  Mostly (as for my two cards), you have to compile and
install a custom set of Linux V4L drivers every time the kernel is
updated.