[mythtv-users] pcHDTV card

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Thursday, Oct 2, 2003, at 18:02 US/Pacific, Jarod C. Wilson wrote:

> On Thursday, Oct 2, 2003, at 14:39 US/Pacific, Brandon Beattie wrote:
>
>> Make sure to visit antennaweb.org and see what antenna you will need..
>
> Already done that. I need a blue one (mid-range directional 
> w/pre-amp). About $200 later (ouch), and I think I have everything I 
> need (antenna - $70, 10ft mast - $12, mounting bracket - $20, pre-amp 
> $50, 100ft RG-6QS coax cable - $30).
>
> Now to get it all mounted. Then the fun begins...

Got it mounted this afternoon. Very handy to have a wireless laptop 
ssh'd back into my machine with the pcHDTV card in it, running the 
signal app, so I could align the antenna for the best signal strength 
(didn't have a compass handy either).

I now get ABC, CBS, PBS, WB, UPN and FOX (and a few others) HD 
broadcasts. No dice on NBC, the signal isn't anywhere near strong 
enough.

I've just checked out and installed this evening's CVS of MythTV for 
use with the pcHDTV card (on a freshly installed system). Playback in 
MythTV is better than xine-hd, because xine-hd doesn't do any 
deinterlacing (at least that's what it looks like to me). However, 
there are a few problems I'm having.

1) Some channels come in with the rightmost 10-20% in solid green, 
while the rest of the picture looks like it should. This happens when 
viewing with both xine-hd and MythTV.

2) While I'm (usually) able to change channels in xine-hd, I can't EVER 
change channels in MythTV (and I've pared my setup down to only a few 
known working HD channels). Nothing too descriptive on the console 
telling me why, but I still need to investigate further. Killing off 
both the frontend and backend, then restarting both, and I start 
viewing the channel that I'd just unsuccessfully tried to change to (so 
the channel change is happening, but I'm dying somewhere after that).

Anyone considering purchasing the card, be prepared to have some 
patience. The card isn't ready for prime-time use with MythTV yet, but 
does look very promising. The video quality is AWESOME. At the moment, 
just a very expensive toy for me (over $400 for the card and big-ass 
antenna for me to get a useable signal), but I hope to somehow aid the 
development process, if only through testing.

That's all for now...

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

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