linux PVR's

[Zscoundrel]

VERY good response!!!

I really appreciate it when someone answers a question like this with 
lots of extra details and advice!  I have tried many of the responses 
posted here and sometimes find them to be like walking along a railroad 
track at night during a full moon after a party.  Every couple of steps 
I stumble because something was left out and I didn't see the space 
between the ties until too late!

Brian Kelsay wrote:

> 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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