Getting TV onto a Linux box

[Tim Writer]

Paul DiRezze <pdirezze-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> writes:

> Apart from Paul Mora's post on the Hauppauge WinTV GO PCI TV tuner card, are
> there any peripherals out there that let me replace my digital cable box or
> satellite receiver with a Linux box?  It's my understanding that current
> Linux PVRs the WinTV only do basic cable.

AFAIK, you can't replace your satellite receiver or digital cable box in
North America yet.  However, you can work with it.  You can use a WinTV card
to bring the TV signal into your Linux box from the receiver and use an IR
blaster to control the receiver (i.e. to change channels) from within Linux.
This is supported by MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org).

One thing about the WinTV GO card, it's a plain old TV tuner, fine for
watching live TV but not great for recording or streaming across a network.
If you want to build a full Linux PVR, I'd recommend the Hauppauge WinTV PVR
250 or 350 because they have hardware MPEG-2 encoding.  With these cards, you
can encode live TV to MPEG-2 in real time with no load on your CPU.  The 350
has an FM Tuner as well as TV out.  For a while, the 250 was on sale at
Future Shop and Best Buy for around $150.

-- 
tim writer <tim-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>                                  starnix inc.
647.722.5301                                      toronto, ontario, canada
http://www.starnix.com              professional linux services & products
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