Text 4844, 71 rader
Skriven 2006-01-01 23:40:30 av Gordon Huff (1:106/2000.0)
   Kommentar till text 4838 av Russell Tiedt (5:7105/1)
Ärende: Re: audio/video capture
===============================
-=> Russell Tiedt wrote to Gordon Huff <=-

 RT> Hello Gordon.

 RT> 29 Dec 05 23:58, you wrote to me:

 RT>> You have me very temped indeed, to gather every last penny, and
 RT>> go out looking for a WINTV-PVR card, as a christmas present to my
 RT>> self, that is ... <VVBG>

Okeh ... WINTV-PVR is a special video card like the ATI "All-in Wonder" and
a similar piece from a company named "Haupauge." This lets your Windows-based
home computer (the WIN part of WINTV-PVR) receive broadcast or cable 
television (the TV part of WINTV-PVR) and record this television on your
hard disk( this is the VR part of WINTV-PVR) and that you can view this 
at any time or in any order that you personally choose(this is the P in 
WINTV-PVR.)

There are consumer home electronics set-top boxes that do this - the 
leading company is called "Tivo." In addition, DirecTV and Dish networks 
offer this functionality in their satellite TV receivers ... 
"with Tivo" if the box has Tivo-licensed hardware and software ... 
or "with DVR" otherwise. (indeed, Digital Video Recorder.)

A Tivo box is a Linux box (Slackware, I think) with Multimedia Hardware.
Our Linux magazines are full of details on how to tinker with the Tivo
and Micro$oft has noticed. There is a version of Micro$oft Windows
XP Professional Media Center Edition or Windows MCE. You can buy
full systems with all this stuff working out of the box!

You have to look some to get Windows MCE ... and not worth doing if you
don't have the right pieces.

 GH> Let me jump in here - I've noticed a big jump in DVR interest in the
 GH> stores. The swap meet dealer had two kinds of satellite receiver on a
 GH> PCI card for $70 and $100. A big burst in M$ Multimedia "C" Edition
 GH> (MCE) - means a few months delay might offer more choices for
 GH> supported multimedia cards beyond the Haupauge and "one" ATI ....

The swap meet dealers have a video card like the All-in-Wonder except
it has a satellite TV receiver instead of a common TV receiver. 
For example, the video is 30 MHz frequency modulation instead of 6MHz
amplitude modulation, and it can generate the voltages need to operate
the switches in the satellite system, etc.

Off the top of my head, there are 200- 500 TV satellites overhead with
a total of 5000 to 10,000 TV channels ... at any given spot on the
earth, several hundred TV channels are available - in much of the world
your TV license fees pay for this and there are no additional charges.

(In the US, this is commercialized -- DirecTV (or Dish) will deliver
about 200 channels for a fee. There are about 30 free TV satellite
channels available - but you can get more with various heroic measures.)

Compaq/HP offer M$ MCE in inexpensive computers ... I expect a burst of
activity in this field .... and some of them will choose to do it in 
Linux ... just like Tivo did ... more manufacturers, more video cards,
When Dell and Gateway/E-Machines jump in ... more players .... and
might become Linux mainstream.

Regards, Gordon


 RT> Okay, this is way over my head, what is DVR (guesses - Digital Video
 RT> Recording) Satellite reciever cards, what do these do? and what use ...

 RT> MCE - what is that?

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