Hi, I'm new to this PVR lark, although I have been using an EPIA min-ITX box as a Divx/DVD player using geexbox for a year or two.
I hope this list is OK for asking relative newbie questions - please point me elsewhere if it's not the right spot.
I want to add DVB-T reception to my media box, and ideally have it replace the video recorder too, but it remains to be seen if it has sufficient welly.
A fair amount of net-wandering suggests that the Hauppage winTV USB and USB2 cards are both suported but they use different chipsets - is that right? Any pros and cons between them? My gut feeling is that the USB2 should be better as the interface to it is faster, but the hauppage specs say that the older card needs a 500Mhz host, whilst the newer one needs a 1Ghz host. Does the newer one really need more from its host, or this just an effect of the (windowsa) software they supply? Also I can find a lot more docs for the older device - is the new one a bad idea at this stage?
My box is very slow (and thus silent) - it's an EPIA 800Mhz box, too old to have built in MPEG deconding. It plays divxs fine, but glitches slightly playing Full-res DVDs. I think adding a hollywood + PCI card will help it do playback with less load, and is the only chance of it being able to play something whilst recording something else. But that will fill its only PCI slot, which is why I am considering USB for the TV input. Does this make sense, or should I forget trying to play and record at the same time and just put in a PCI winTV card?
I could upgrade the box to use an M10,000 motherboard and an internal DVB-T card instead but that's best part of 100 quid more expensive, so I'm hoping to get away with it. TV quality is not too important, so long as it's not much worse than a VCR, that's fine.
Also, is there a distro like geexbox which boots up quickly to PVR mode, with everything controlled through the OSD?
TIA
Wookey
Hi, I'm new to this PVR lark, although I have been using an EPIA min-ITX box as a Divx/DVD player using geexbox for a year or two.
I hope this list is OK for asking relative newbie questions - please point me elsewhere if it's not the right spot.
I would not count my self as an expert but never the less this list is for VDR specific topics.
I want to add DVB-T reception to my media box, and ideally have it replace the video recorder too, but it remains to be seen if it has sufficient welly.
A fair amount of net-wandering suggests that the Hauppage winTV USB and USB2 cards are both suported but they use different chipsets - is that right? Any pros and cons between them? My gut feeling is that the USB2 should be better as the interface to it is faster, but the hauppage specs say that the older card needs a 500Mhz host, whilst the newer one needs a 1Ghz host. Does the newer one really need more from its host, or this just an effect of the (windowsa) software they supply? Also I can find a lot more docs for the older device - is the new one a bad idea at this stage?
My box is very slow (and thus silent) - it's an EPIA 800Mhz box, too old to have built in MPEG deconding. It plays divxs fine, but glitches slightly playing Full-res DVDs. I think adding a hollywood + PCI card will help it do playback with less load, and is the only chance of it being able to play something whilst recording something else. But that will fill its only PCI slot, which is why I am considering USB for the TV input. Does this make sense, or should I forget trying to play and record at the same time and just put in a PCI winTV card?
I could upgrade the box to use an M10,000 motherboard and an internal DVB-T card instead but that's best part of 100 quid more expensive, so I'm hoping to get away with it. TV quality is not too important, so long as it's not much worse than a VCR, that's fine.
My VDR box is a PIII 600MHz and can record several channels at the same time while I am watching some live channel or a previous recording. It is quite normal that 3 to 5 simultaneous recordings takes place. I have two DVB cards which is practically all I need because the channels I record from are on two muxes.
Also, is there a distro like geexbox which boots up quickly to PVR mode, with everything controlled through the OSD?
I would recommend using google (or what ever search site) for more info on linux vdr. I.e. linvdr is a such distro you seek for. http://www.linvdr.org/ There is also english documentation (http://linvdr.org/projects/linvdr/index.en.php) VDR Home: http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/
TIA
Wookey
\Kartsa
On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 03:29 +0000, Wookey wrote:
Hi, I'm new to this PVR lark, although I have been using an EPIA min-ITX box as a Divx/DVD player using geexbox for a year or two.
I hope this list is OK for asking relative newbie questions - please point me elsewhere if it's not the right spot.
I want to add DVB-T reception to my media box, and ideally have it replace the video recorder too, but it remains to be seen if it has sufficient welly.
A fair amount of net-wandering suggests that the Hauppage winTV USB and USB2 cards are both suported but they use different chipsets - is that right? Any pros and cons between them? My gut feeling is that the USB2 should be better as the interface to it is faster, but the hauppage specs say that the older card needs a 500Mhz host, whilst the newer one needs a 1Ghz host. Does the newer one really need more from its host, or this just an effect of the (windowsa) software they supply? Also I can find a lot more docs for the older device - is the new one a bad idea at this stage?
When I tried the windows software for a PCI Nova-T several years back it was really nasty and clunky and crashed all the time.
I have one of each of these two USB devices. The original winTV USB device 'just worked' with vdr once I'd built the drivers for it. Unfortunately, the bandwidth of USB 1 is so low that you can only use one channel at a time. If I tried two recordings at the same time, all I got was two recordings comprising random block pictures and lots of nasty sounds! Even with a single channel it can struggle if the bit-rate is high. I don't think there is a way of restricting a specific device in vdr so that it will only ever record / stream a single channel.
The newer USB 2 device (which I bought because the old one was so crap!), needs firmware which may take a bit of fiddling to get it loading with hotplug. I have got this device autoloading drivers and firmware, and it works fine with things like 'tzap' and then 'cat /dev/dvb/adaptor0/dvr0' into a file gives a perfect DVB stream. However, so far I have not managed to get vdr to talk to the thing! It recognises it as a DVB device but just doesn't get a DVB stream from it. I'm not sure whether I have got a new version of it, or something like that, but it's really annoying because it works fine, just not with vdr!
:-(
I think there is something strange with the filter timeout because 'scan' from dvb-apps won't work unless it is told to use a longer timeout. I am guessing that this may be the cause of my problems with this device and vdr. I need to sit down and do some debugging...
My box is very slow (and thus silent) - it's an EPIA 800Mhz box, too old to have built in MPEG deconding. It plays divxs fine, but glitches slightly playing Full-res DVDs. I think adding a hollywood + PCI card will help it do playback with less load, and is the only chance of it being able to play something whilst recording something else. But that will fill its only PCI slot, which is why I am considering USB for the TV input. Does this make sense, or should I forget trying to play and record at the same time and just put in a PCI winTV card?
With a PCI Nova-T, I can quite happily record two streams (from same multiplex) and watch another recording at the same time.
I could upgrade the box to use an M10,000 motherboard and an internal DVB-T card instead but that's best part of 100 quid more expensive, so I'm hoping to get away with it. TV quality is not too important, so long as it's not much worse than a VCR, that's fine.
I'm doing this on an Epia MII-12000 using software MPEG decoding which means CPU usage is about 60-70%, which isn't really optimal. A dxr3 / Hollywood+ card does give a really good output but some people have a really hard time getting them going in a stable manner. I have a PCI DVB-T card in the same box so I can't use my dxr3 in it.
Hope some of that helps.
Cheers,
Laz
+++ Laurence Abbott [05-12-12 15:42 +0000]:
I have one of each of these two USB devices. The original winTV USB device 'just worked' with vdr once I'd built the drivers for it. Unfortunately, the bandwidth of USB 1 is so low that you can only use one channel at a time. If I tried two recordings at the same time, all I got was two recordings comprising random block pictures and lots of nasty sounds! Even with a single channel it can struggle if the bit-rate is high. I don't think there is a way of restricting a specific device in vdr so that it will only ever record / stream a single channel.
The newer USB 2 device (which I bought because the old one was so crap!), needs firmware which may take a bit of fiddling to get it loading with hotplug. I have got this device autoloading drivers and firmware, and it works fine with things like 'tzap' and then 'cat /dev/dvb/adaptor0/dvr0' into a file gives a perfect DVB stream. However, so far I have not managed to get vdr to talk to the thing! It recognises it as a DVB device but just doesn't get a DVB stream from it. I'm not sure whether I have got a new version of it, or something like that, but it's really annoying because it works fine, just not with vdr!
:-(
With a PCI Nova-T, I can quite happily record two streams (from same multiplex) and watch another recording at the same time.
I'm doing this on an Epia MII-12000 using software MPEG decoding which means CPU usage is about 60-70%, which isn't really optimal. A dxr3 / Hollywood+ card does give a really good output but some people have a really hard time getting them going in a stable manner. I have a PCI DVB-T card in the same box so I can't use my dxr3 in it.
Hope some of that helps.
That helps enormously. Thank you. Exactly the info I was looking for. It sounds like if I get the new USB device it is likely to be working 'fairly soon', although it may involve some fettling. It's tempting to go for the internal PCI card, but then I think I'd need a newer M-series EPIA board, like yours. I don't think mine will cope adequately. On the other hand the PCI boards are cheaper. Hmm, I wonder if a 2-slot riser will fit in my case...
Wookey
On Tuesday 13 December 2005 22:19, Wookey wrote:
That helps enormously. Thank you. Exactly the info I was looking for. It sounds like if I get the new USB device it is likely to be working 'fairly soon', although it may involve some fettling. It's tempting to go for the internal PCI card, but then I think I'd need a newer M-series EPIA board, like yours. I don't think mine will cope adequately. On the other hand the PCI boards are cheaper. Hmm, I wonder if a 2-slot riser will fit in my case...
I had visions of using an active PCI riser card. Never managed to get two PCI DVB cards going off it: I think they just need too many interrupt for that! These things need quite a bit of bandwidth!
Cheers,
Laz
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Kartsa -
Laurence Abbott -
Laz
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Wookey