[linux-dvb] Re: Multimedia PC with budget card

["Dr. Juergen Pfennig" <info@j-pfennig.de>]

On Thursday 29 July 2004 11:04, Nils Potthoff wrote:
> I own a WinTv Nova budget DVB-S card.
...
<I want to build a computer only for television and other multimedia
> applications.
...
> Of cource I wanna use Linux (preffered Gentoo with 2.6 or is there a better
> one)

Hello Nils,

since a year I am using an Asus Pundit (which has a Sis651 chipset with a 
quite good video output). The SIS X11 drivers from Thomas Winischhofer allow 
me to adjust the image so that it fills the screen, has optimal colours and 
contrast and is sharp (most filters turned off). I am not using xine but 
mplayer which is more stable. But xine would also be fine.

I really run X11 on the system, but the screen resolution is set to 740x572 
(or something close) to match PAL/625 lines/50 Hz. Menus and text remain 
readable because set the dpi values of X11 to an appropriate value, which 
works nice with most X11-Toolskits (including qt/KDE).

Although I am using Suse (currently 9.1) I am sure that I could use at least 
Debian instead (no Suse Woodo included). The trick to get the main menu up 
45s after power on is to run Linux in Run-Level 4 and to tweak the start-up 
mechanism a bit.

The Gui runs on a half-initialized KDE and is based on kDialog. You can get a 
full KDE session if you want (to browse or to read E-Mail). I will start soon 
to integrate my zapdvb software into the set-top pc. Zapdvb (see 
http://www.j-pfennig.de/zapdvb/news.html) allows life TV or Radio playing, 
timed or periodic recording, file CD/DVB playback and video editing. 

Currently the set-top software includes little documentation but it is 
functional, see (http://www.j-pfennig.de/ZapTvOut/index.html).

Contributions are welcome!

Jürgen