Re: tv/radio card
>
> I'm wanting to buy a tv tuner for my computer, but before I do I
> have a
> couple of questions:
> - Do internal tv cards or usb tv cards work best?
> - What models/brands are well supported?
> - Does Remote control support work?
> - Do any allow for reccording of tv?
> - Do any supported cards come with a built in fm radio tuner? If
> so what
> card should I get.
>
> Finally, once my card is working, what programs should I use to
> controlthe radio and tv? I found gnomeradio which seems to work
> with orca (I am
> blind, so I need a program that is either gtk or command line based),
> but does anyone know of a program that could control the tv?
> (that isn't
> qt based).
>
> Finally these cards will allow me to pick up standard tv like my
> normaltv would won't it?
>
> Thanks for any info,
>
> Daniel
>
Hi,
There are a lot of TV tuner cards that work in Linux, either with native drivers or with drivers like ivtv. I have a Debian Etch box running MythTV with two TV tuner cards in it, a Hauppauge PVR-350 and a Hauppauge PVR-150, both of which use the ivtv drivers. The PVR-350 supports MPEG encoding and decoding, so it can be used for recording and playback. It also comes with a remote control and IR sensor which work very well using lirc, and it has an on-board FM tuner which I have not personally used, but I believe does work under Linux. The PVR-150 is only an encoder and can only be used for recording. These two cards are fairly old, though, and I'm sure there are better options out there now. I have read a lot of praise for Nvidia's TV tuner cards as well.
MythTV may not fit your needs as it is based on Qt, and that's all I have personally used with these tuner cards so I'm afraid I can't make any recommendations about software, but I'm sure there are several available. The MythTV forums might be a good place to look, since tuner cards are a big topic of discussion, and a lot of people mention other TV and radio programs, too.
I hope this helps.
- Dave
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