[vdr] Re: OT: a rant regarding DVB-C cards

[Niko Tarnanen <ntarnane@cc.hut.fi>]

Hi Juha,

I've been wondering some of the same things myself, so here are some
answers that I've found so far.


On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Juha Pahkala wrote:

> One thing I'd like to know is whether I'll
> be able to use only the tuner part of a full featured card in the
> future, if at some point it'll be feasible to use a videocard to output
> to TV.

One guy in dvb-linux -list is working on some kind of premium to budget
modification on his full-featured DVB-S-card. Please see the dvb-list
for more information.
http://www.linuxtv.org/mailinglists/linux-dvb/2002/12-2002/msg00475.html


> I think I could order a Hauppauge/TT from Germany for around 230 euros
> and a Siemens for about 150,-.

From where can you get a Siemens card for 150 euros?


> Another thing with full featured cards is the capablility to output
> streams in RGB or at least s-video format. Or do they all support only
> composite output?

I was wondering the same thing a while ago, until technical support of
the Technotrend gave me the answer concerning the J2-connector. I quote
them:
"The connection of the DVB-C 2.1 - card is the same like for example the
DVB-S 1.3 - card."
And as Antti Lammi stated, he has s-video output working on his TT DVB-C.
So i think it's pretty safe to state that you should be able to get
s-video and RGB from a TT/Hauppauge DVB-C rev2.1.


> And what about the budget cards. Do these cards have the same problems
> as their full featured 'big brothers' respectively? So I guess what I'm
> asking is, is the ARM chip responsible for the mpeg decoding basically
> the only difference between a full featured and a budget card?

The budget cards don't have an ARM-processor onboard for MPEG-decoding,
so they shouldn't have ARM crashes either...  ;)
And because of the missing MPEG-decoder they don't have a TV-out. But I
don't know if budget-C-cards work with Linux drivers. Can someone verify
that they do work?


> One more stupid one: Any recomendations on where to buy the card? Are
> there any proven good, cheap providers?

As stated, www.usa-x.org is selling TT DVB-C for 209EUR + 15EUR for
posting to Finland. Please let me know if you find a better offer.
According to www.mbnet.fi/hintaseuranta, the best offer in Finland for
Hauppauge DVB-C is 277EUR.


> [2] I know of at least one project that tries to accomplish something
> like a budget+videocard combination, namely http://df-gp.sourceforge.net
> , but I don't know if in development anymore

Actually this project uses a premium aka. full-featured card and there are
problems with video synchronization on TV-out.

Regards,

--
Niko


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