Re: Recommended Video Capture Card

[Venkatesh Raghavan <raghavan@example.com>]

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for your reply. Few more questions to
make sure that I understood you right.

"Marcus O.C. Metzler" wrote:

> Venkatesh Raghavan writes:
>  > Hi all,
>  >
>  > Would like to use a video capture device on
>  > Linux. Would be happy to receive any
>  > recommendations for compatible hardware.
>  >
>  > Have looked up the supported hardware list,
>  > but would like to learn more for your experience.
>  > Also looking for some feedback about some relatively
>  > newer card such as Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-PCI.
>  >
>
> All cards using the bt848/bt878 are very well supported. It is
> possible to capture video with these and using a software encoder to
> compress the video. The wintv-pvr has an additional chip that enables
> it to encode mpeg1/2 by hardware. Its called kfir. There are already
> drivers for another card using the kfir chip (at www.linuxtv.org). The
> mpeg encoding works very well, although some people still have
> problems with initializing the card (see mailing list mpeg2 at
> www.linuxtv.org).

Didn't know that wintv-pvr has a bt878 chip. Am I right in understanding
that for the moment I can use it just like the old WinTV card expect for
the kfir chip features. For capture and software encoding, I plan to use
MainActor. If wintv-pvr set-up is going to be tricky, may be I will
consider
I0-Data GV-BCTV3 that appears on the supported hardware list and locally
available. Any suggestions?

About the mailing list on mpeg2, is there an archive somewhere?

> We are currently working on drivers for the wintv-pvr which uses 2
> chips that are already supported under linux (kfir and bt878) and we
> will hopefully get some information from conexant (they build the
> bt878 (well now cn878) chips) to speed up the process. There are is
> also a sourceforge project that wants to write drivers for the
> wintv-pvr.

Could not locate the wintv-pvr on SourceForge. Will look forward
to your driver

>
> AFAIK you can already use the wintv-pvr in its capacity as grabber
> card, but hardware mpeg1/2 encoding will take a while.
>
> The encoding quality and parameters that can be set for the kfir chip
> cover a wide range. So that you can do streaming video or high quality
> DVD-like encoding. You can create transport, program or system streams
> with  almost any bitrate you like.
>
> More information can be found at linuxtv.org.

Thanks,

Venkatesh
Osaka City University