[linux-dvb] suggestions for dual tuner + hardware encoder cards?

[Zenon Mousmoulas]

Hi,

Hans, thank you very much for your suggestion. Sorry for replying so  
late.

On 25 Οκτ 2007, at 1:08 ΜΜ, Hans Verkuil wrote:

> One option is the Hauppauge PVR-500 that has two tuners. It can encode
> into an MPEG-2 Program Stream (NOT Transport Stream, you will have  
> to do
> postprocessing if you want a TS). Also note that it is not suitable  
> as a
> framegrabber card, it's meant to be used as an MPEG encoder.

I read about this on the wiki. So basically this is true for all  
iTVC15/iTVC16-based devices, supported by ivtv, this one included?

In the pictures I saw there is a single RF input; this is somehow  
split internally is this signal somehow split internally so both  
tuners work independently? In the end you get two MPEG-PS from two  
video devices?

Do you happen to know if these cards are sold in Europe? I am asking  
because this model is only listed in the Hauppauge US site, and I  
couldn't find them in any European-based stores so far.

I was looking at HVR cards (like the HVR-1300 and HVR-4000), but I  
think none of these feature both a hardware encoder and dual tuners.  
Right?

Any other suggestions? I would even consider single-tuner cards, if  
they're well supported and the quality is really good. Would you or  
anyone suggest a specific cx88+blackbird card?

> Watch out for PVR-500 cards that use a Samsung tuner: avoid them,  
> these
> tuners can give you a lot of trouble depending on the quality of your
> input signal.

Hauppauge lists two models: 00253 and 00254. I suppose I would be  
interested in the second one, since Hauppauge says it's the one with  
a PAL tuner (or is that a software feature?). Is this somehow related  
to the above? Is there any way I could tell if a specific card has  
this tuner (before installing it)? Maybe last questions should be  
addressed to ivtv-users instead, but I thought I'd ask you anyway.

Thanks again.

Best regards,
Z.