[u-u] What's a good digital capture card?

Tue May 17 08:04:15 EDT 2016

On Mon, 16 May 2016, David Collier-Brown wrote:

> 
> I have an older MythTV that I used for analog, and just tried out an antenna on my TC, with surprisingly clear
> results.  When I looked to get a capture card for the PVR, however, things were less clear (;-))
> 
> What have people been using for digital? I'm running MythTV on Ubuntu, so it has to be linux-friendly.

I have the following PCI cards.

Technotrend Air2PC ATSC only card (1st revision). It was sold for a long 
time on Ebay but the supply has dried up. It works very well if you can 
find one and is fairly sensitive on weak signals. One of the first cards 
to be supported on Linux. The Linux driver has one weird bug. When a 32 
bit kernel is first started, it takes 7 minutes before the card functions. 
After this, it works right away until the next reboot. The workaround is 
making sure your machine is booted at least 7 minutes before a scheduled 
recording. It works perfectly right away on a 64 bit kernel built from the 
same source. I suspect the firmware loading is misaligned on a 32 bit 
kernel and the microprocessor on the card fixes it but it takes a few 
minutes. 
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TechniSat_Air2PC-ATSC-PCI#Air2PC-ATSC-PCI_.281st_rev.29

ATI HDTV Wonder. This card does both analogue and digital using the same 
tuner. I have found that mythtv doesn't handle this very well. If you are 
making an analogue recording and myth decides to scan digital channels for 
guide data, it is not smart enough to lock out the scanning when analogue 
is in use, ruining your recording in progress. It does lock out 
conflicting scheduled recordings though so dual mode MAY be O.K. if you 
configure the digital side to not scan for guide data. I never trusted it 
though. I have found the safest thing is to only configure the digital 
side and not use the analogue at all or vice versa if you want to record 
only analogue. It works perfectly if you only use one mode or the other. 
Signal sensitivity is maybe just a little less than the Air2PC but still 
acceptable. It has two antenna inputs which can be selected at driver load 
time. AFAIK there is no mechanism to change this on the fly after the 
driver is loaded but this is software so could theoretically be changed. 
This could be a really useful feature if you have separate antennas for CN 
tower and Buffalo. The remote control uses RF via a separate USB radio 
receiver not infrared and you could use it to control anything since TV 
and remote controls are completely separate subsytems in Linux.

https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI/AMD_HDTV_Wonder
These listings are reasonably priced except for shipping from the U.S. 
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ATI-HDTV-Wonder-w-Remote-No-Antenna-/162063681619?hash=item25bbbf8853:g:Fv8AAOSwX~dWiIEu
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ATI-HDTV-Wonder-PCI-Tv-Tuner-Card-With-RF-Remote-Breakout-Cable-Antenna-like-new-/172110559989?hash=item281296baf5:g:gukAAOSwB4NWyoO0
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ATI-HDTV-Wonder-Pci-Tv-Tuner-Card-With-RF-Remote-And-Breakout-Cable-Good-Used-/191641214721?hash=item2c9eb4df01:g:bLwAAOSwjVVVsXsi

  Hauppauge HVR1600 has separate analogue and digital tuners. The digital 
tuner is not as sensitive as the others on weak signals but works 
perfectly fine on stronger signals. Mine has an IC for the digital tuner 
and a large can type for analogue. They have separate antenna inputs and 
you can record from both at once. It is perfectly supported on Linux 
except I have read you can't use two cards in the same machine. Later 
production has IC tuners for both analogue and digital. I have no idea if 
the later model works on Linux. 
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-1600

Here is an Ebay listing for the exact one I have:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/WinTV-HVR-1600-ATSC-NTSC-74551-LF-TV-Tuner-Card-/291705448901?hash=item43eaffe9c5:g:rBcAAOSwwpdW4aTx
Note: this one does FM radio with a separate antenna input. Some variants 
do not.

an Ebay listing for the later production model:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Hauppauge-1178-WinTV-HVR-1600-Internal-Hybrid-TV-Tuner-Video-Recorder-/361555856446?hash=item542e688c3e:g:T8gAAOSwP~tW4FH0

I have a pair of Hauppauge HVR950Q USB sticks. They work well except for a 
serious intermittent bug. Sometimes mythtv will start a recording and all 
appears to be normal except there is no data being written to the disk. 
Most of the time it works. There is another bug in older kernels since 
fixed where it won't work the first time the driver is opened. This can be 
worked around by scheduling short dummy recordings. Quite sensitive on 
weak signals.
  Analogue works but I find it doesn't work in recent mythtv versions. 
Stereo audio is not equalized properly. AFAIK it doesn't have the required 
Dolby noise reduction in the chipset as this costs money for royalties 
and cheaper chipsets leave this out.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Hauppauge-HVR950Q-WinTV-HVR-950Q-/151773516413?hash=item235668127d:g:4VIAAOSwHnFVxvVF

They have introduced a new model HVR955Q. It looks the same but is 
different internally. I can't speak to Linux support on that one.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/NEW-Hauppauge-Wintv-hvr-955q-Tv-Tuner-Usb-2-0ntsc-atsc-qam-Hd-1191-/331699261846?hash=item4d3ad11196:g:iwYAAOSwT5tWOUOd

Hauppauge HVR-1500Q 54mm Express card interface for some laptops.
  Has the same solid state tuner as the HVR-950Q. Works well on weak 
signals. No digital driver problems. I have been using this one for months 
without problems. Analogue not currently supported but I have made it 
partially work hacking on the kernel myself. 
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCMCIA_Cards 
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-1500 (the non-Q 
version looks the same as the Q variant I have but the tuner and the 
driver code are different)

Thoughts on some cards I don't have: 
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_Devices
  has listings of cards which work with Linux including the following PCIe cards.

  Hauppauge HVR-1250
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-1250
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Dell-Hauppauge-WinTV-HVR-1250-low-profile-Internal-HDTV-PCI-Express-Card-GP858-/381498549358?hash=item58d315e46e:g:WOUAAOSwQItT6RR-

  Hauppauge HVR-1800
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-1800
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-5188-8538-WinTV-HVR-1800-ATSC-NTSC-FM-78521LF-PCI-Ex1-HD-TV-Tuner-G3P6-/262424278338?hash=item3d19b4b542:g:NiEAAOSwSclXLPmX

  Hauppauge HVR-2250 (this one has two ATSC tuners on the same card)
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-2250
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Hauppauge-WinTV-HVR-2250-Dual-Tuner-Card-MPN-1213-/391457721914?hash=item5b24b2ce3a:g:Cm0AAOSwve5XN9f~

The Ebay listings are so you can see what they look like. I have seen them 
much cheaper than the listings I selected, in the $30-40 range for all of 
the ones I have at different times.

I found this PDF while looking for the other stuff.
http://www.phillylinux.org/slides/hdtv-on-linux-20070726.pdf
                          Doug
> 
> --dave
> 
> 
> -- 
> David Collier-Brown,         | Always do right. This will gratify
> System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
> davecb at spamcop.net           |                      -- Mark Twain
> 
>