linux PVR's

[Brian Kelsay]

Jonathan Hutchins wrote:

>I started to try to build a Linux PVR a while back, and got bogged down 
>because I couldn't get XWindows to use the TV output as the default.
>
>(In fact, it appears that the card I had, an All-in-Wonder, has trouble with 
>TV out in Linux in general, but...)
>
>Anyway, I was wondering if those of you who have built Linux PVR's have been 
>able to use the TV output as the default, or if you reqire a seperate VGA 
>monitor to make the system work.
>  
>
There have been people on the Video4Linux and MythTV mailing list that 
have fought with those d**n cards for quite a while and still not gotten 
full functionality.   Do a search for the GATOS drivers or modules.   I 
tried following the instructions for Gatos, but the instructions seemed 
circular in their logic.  Clear as mud.   I have a Radeon 7000 w/ TV 
out, but I was told to not waste my time wrestling w/ TV-out on it.  The 
card works fine under Linux (RH 9) and fine w/ V4L drivers and Xawtv.    
All recommendations on the MythTV list point to the GeForce 4 MX being 
the most cost effective solution.  It's around $40 online and provides 
plenty of functionality for a video capture and playback machine.  
TV-out is fully functional in Linux.   Just like w/ sound cards, modems 
and other peripherals, you can save yourself some headaches by checking 
compatibility before you buy.

For the video capture card you can use any BT8x8 (bt848 or bt878)  chip 
based card.  Some of the Conexant based cards work, but you are in for 
more headaches.   The best recommended card for a PVR box under Linux is 
the Hauppage PVR-250, because of its hardware MPEG encoding and decoding 
capability.  It save you some CPU. 

As for CPU, I've seen recommendations for 1.0 GHz and up.   2 GHz or 
more is best, P-III 500 is bare minimum.   I read today about some cheap 
motherboards that have a soldered on Duron 1.8 or 2 GHz processor (no 
upgrading w/out switching mobo).   256MB of RAM is minimum here.

On-board sound can be used, but again the best is probably a Sound 
Blaster Live Value or better.   My SB Live Value setup perfectly on 
RedHat 9 install.

I know you didn't ask all this, but this just saves a series of 
questions from you and others and I can put what I have learned all in 
one place for everybody.   There is an article in Linux Journal August 
about the mythTV project or go to www.mythtv.org.   There are others, 
but this one has the most functionality that I have found, including 
support for Photo Gallery, playing video game ROMS w/ MAME, skipping 
commercials, using multiple capture cards, client/server model, etc.

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