Thinking of building an HTPC...

[dZeus]

Marvel might work well for capturing (G400+RRG is very buggy for hw capture in linux in my experience and it's unsupported by mgavideo project). One major problem with linux is tv-out. The only way to get near to DVD-MAX-like quality tv-out is to use mplayer with dfbmga vo driver and directfb. I haven't been able to compile mythtv successfully in gentoo with directfb support unfortunately though.

Windows is pretty much a install&go affair, although RRG and Marvel won't work very well for hw capture in 2k&XP either.

[leech]

I actually had TV capture working ok at one point in linux, but didn't do a lot with it. The TV-Out part is the one I'm more worried about. I seem to recall getting everything working nicely with the Marvel under linux, but I wonder if they've updated the drivers to work with the 2.6 kernel..

Leech

[TnT]

There is heavy work going on right now to get the Marvel working with 2.6. It's pretty active and many are getting successful results. Check out the mailing list on sourceforge. I haven't had time to try it out myself though.

[GNEP]

Right. It would appear from reading around that these:

http://www.nebula-electronics.com/information/info.asp?Code=0001

are the dog's proverbials when it comes to digital TV on a PC... bit on the pricey side though, albeit not disastrously so.

[xortam]

Originally posted by GNEP
Right. It would appear from reading around that these:

http://www.nebula-electronics.com/information/info.asp?Code=0001

are the dog's proverbials when it comes to digital TV on a PC... bit on the pricey side though, albeit not disastrously so.

Quickly scanning over that site doesn't impress me. For one thing its only PAL. I don't notice the scaling details and I doubt its up to level of the 19-tap scaler on the MyHD cards. I also don't see any digital video outputs (e.g. DVI or HDMI) which makes it quite inferior for today's digital displays. I'll stick with my solution thank you.

[GNEP]

Hang on, all it's supposed to do is take the wire from a rooftop terrestrial aerial and turn the signal into something the computer can see... and then output to whatever telly I have is secondary surely? I am in the UK by the way, so PAL is all I need, isn't it? Or am I really missing something here? I know in your first post you talked about TV first and then HTPC second, but for the next year or two I have access to an old TV which is good enough - and anyway want an excuse to build another machine

[xortam]

Originally posted by GNEP
Hang on, all it's supposed to do is take the wire from a rooftop terrestrial aerial and turn the signal into something the computer can see... and then output to whatever telly I have is secondary surely? ...

That's what the MyHD card does. The display device is not secondary if you care about the video quality but that doesn't seem to be important to you.

Originally posted by GNEP
... I am in the UK by the way, so PAL is all I need, isn't it? Or am I really missing something here? I know in your first post you talked about TV first and then HTPC second, but for the next year or two I have access to an old TV which is good enough - and anyway want an excuse to build another machine

You'll have to answer that question regarding TV standards yourself because it depends on the content you want to play and the video equipment that you will use. "TV" is an example of a display device and can be many things. I'm using a 23" WUXGA LCD monitor for a "TV" as well as a computer monitor (actually its been almost exclusively a "TV" so far). An HTPC is a video capture/storage/distribution/processing, etc. platform and is a key tool for use with today's digital video content. This all doesn't matter much if you don't intend on using a high quality digital display for viewing your content.

[GNEP]

Ah I see... you are basically at the higher end of things - I am falling off the bottom somewhere... doing things cheaply and just combining MP3 player with DVD player with folding machine with with DVB decoder (don't have a set-top box) with HDD video recorder... on a budget and as a bit of an excuse to play around with hardware - I don't have the money or spend enough time watching films/tv at home to do what you are talking about - maybe in a couple of years after a few learning steps first.

Although being able to stream the tv around the home network would cut down on the number of cables hanging around.. Thanks for all the help btw - v. much appreciated as I know virtually nothing about all this.

[xortam]

Originally posted by GNEP
Ah I see... you are basically at the higher end of things - I am falling off the bottom somewhere... doing things cheaply and just combining MP3 player with DVD player with folding machine with with DVB decoder (don't have a set-top box) with HDD video recorder... on a budget and as a bit of an excuse to play around with hardware - I don't have the money or spend enough time watching films/tv at home to do what you are talking about - maybe in a couple of years after a few learning steps first.

Although being able to stream the tv around the home network would cut down on the number of cables hanging around.. Thanks for all the help btw - v. much appreciated as I know virtually nothing about all this.

You're welcome.

The HTPC forum on AVS is a great resource to learn about the various aspects of HTPCs and you should be able to get help at any level of implementation (e.g. just a starter HTPC using a CRT). AVS is an international forum so there are plenty of PAL users that post on there. I've been reading, planning, and waiting for the market to mature for the last five years before I jumped into DTV with all my recent purchases. I now can receive, process, and play back DTV content from BUD satellite, the Net, and OTA. I haven't even had a chance to play with all my new toys yet (too many more important things going on right now) but I plan on picking up a DVB PCI tuner card for BUD DVB content also. My new commercial receiver (4DTV) is for DC2 and FTA MPEG-2 TV as well as VC2 and FTA analog TV signals but it doesn't receive DVB. I doubt cable TV will ever darken my doorstep again so I don't give a hoot about anything going on in that arena.