[linux-dvb] Re: best TV card to buy?

[Carsten Koch <Carsten.Koch@icem.de>]

Hi Paul,

Paul Duran wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm looking to build a PVR and extra functionality
> (see media-box.org).. I'd like to do this under linux
> and have seen the dvb project.
> 
> What would be the best video card and/or tv card to
> use for this purpose?
> 
> I'm currently living in the UK and would probably be
> feeding input from the 'second tv' output on my sky
> digibox.
> 
> Any suggestions?

the video-related focus in this mailing list is on direct
recording of the digital MPEG stream that comes from the
satellite.

The 'second tv' output on your sky digibox is an analog
output. To re-convert that to digital video, you would
need a frame grabber card, such as the kfir card, which
has also been discussed on this mailing list, see the
archive at
   http://linuxtv.org/mailinglists/linux-dvb/threads.html

The kfir card now also has its own mailing list, see the
archive at
   http://linuxtv.org/mailinglists/mpeg2/threads.html


However, as the Sky signal already comes as a digital 
MPEG stream from the satellite, you will lose both time
and quality if you use your digibox to decompress it and 
the kfir card to re-compress it. It would be much better
to use the dvb card and a suitable CAM (is there one for
the Sky viewing card?) to record the original data directly
using Klaus Schmidinger's excellent vdr program.

If you find a solution for direct recording (without 
decompression and re-compression), please post it to this
list. I know several people who would be very interested.



> Also, I have heard some talk about realtime encoding
> of mpeg4/divx/opendivx.. Would a Duron 800 processor
> be capable of this task?

Where have you heard that?
Can you post a URL?
I would be very interested.
Last I heard was, that it takes about a day to encode
an hour of divx on a fast system.


Carsten.


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