Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 13:44:18 -0200 From: Mario Sergio Fujikawa Ferreira <lioux-list@uol.com.br> To: FreeBSD-multimedia@FreeBSD.org Subject: Buying a TV Capture card (pinnacle, hauppauge: wincast, pvr, etc) Message-ID: <20051206154440.61804.qmail@exxodus.fedaykin.here>
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--KFztAG8eRSV9hGtP Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi, I am considering acquiring a tv capture card in order to build a personal PVR system. Besides helping me test the video capture support of some ports I maintain. Well, some info on my system $ uname -a FreeBSD exxodus.fedaykin.here 5.4-STABLE FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE #3: Sun Nov 27 = 16:31:18 BRST 2005 lioux@exxodus:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/LIOUX i386 CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+ (1925.01-MHz 686-class CPU) Origin =3D "AuthenticAMD" Id =3D 0x6a0 Stepping =3D 0 Features=3D0x383fbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE= ,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE> AMD Features=3D0xc0400000<AMIE,DSP,3DNow!> $ mplayer -V=20 MPlayer 1.0pre7try2-3.4.5 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team $ ls /var/db/pkg|grep mplayer-gtk mplayer-gtk-0.99.7_6 I currently own the following card which has a suboptimal video capture quality (read VHS heavily used old tape quality). bktr0: <BrookTree 878> mem 0xfd9fe000-0xfd9fefff irq 19 at device 7.0 on pc= i0 smbus0: <System Management Bus> on bktr0 smb0: <SMBus generic I/O> on smbus0 iicbb0: <I2C bit-banging driver> on bktr0 iicbus0: <Philips I2C bus> on iicbb0 master-only iicsmb0: <SMBus over I2C bridge> on iicbus0 smbus1: <System Management Bus> on iicsmb0 smb1: <SMBus generic I/O> on smbus1 bktr0: Hauppauge Model 44001 C110 bktr0: Hauppauge WinCast/TV A sample of my current setup can be seen at $ mencoder -tv driver=3Dbsdbt848:width=3D768:height=3D576:norm=3Dntsc \ -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=3Dmpeg4:vbitrate=3D3800:vratetol=3D1000:vhq:v4m= v:keyint=3D250 \ -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=3D128 \ -vf crop=3D744:558,pp=3Dlb/dr,scale=3D512:384 -sws 2 \ -o samplehq.avi tv:// -tv input=3D0 -endpos 900 http://people.FreeBSD.org/~lioux/sample.avi $ mencoder -tv driver=3Dbsdbt848:noaudio:width=3D768:height=3D576:input=3D0= :norm=3Dntsc tv:// \ -cache 131072 \ -o output.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=3Dmpeg4:vbitrate=3D3800:vr= atetol=3D1000:vhq:v4mv:keyint=3D250 \ -force-avi-aspect 1.333333333333 http://people.FreeBSD.org/~lioux/sample2.avi The things I want to improve from the above samples: remove the image stuttering and reduce (even remove) the image noise. Hopefully achieving good enough quality that they look as crisp as the quality I have watching tv. I have SKY sattelite cable and I am using SVideo. Crisp quality will allow me to judge whether the ports I maintain are doing fine. It would seem that I have plenty of processor available (load 0 just before testing) and the HD I am using for the trials is an ATA133 dedicated for the purpose. I intend to use the capture board exclusively under FreeBSD. I am wondering from the range of available bktr working cards, which one I should buy if I want quality. Of course, within an acceptable price range. Keep in mind that I do not know the differences amongst the cards listed below so I'll defer to your better judgement. From Hauppauge, I get - Hauppauge WinTV-GO-Plus http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_goplus.html - Hauppauge WinTV-PVR150 http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr150.html - Hauppauge WinTV-PVR250 http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr250.html - Hauppauge WinTV-PVR350 http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr350.html - Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 (I guess USB won't work heheh :) http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html Well, which one should I look for? Does the hardware mpeg encoding work? Is it worth it even with the amount of available processor power for software encoding? Does the USB one work? I gather that the list is ordered from cheaper to most expensive. Therefore, which ones should I consider? Regards, --=20 Mario S F Ferreira - DF - Brazil - "I guess this is a signature." feature, n: a documented bug | bug, n: an undocumented feature --KFztAG8eRSV9hGtP Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFDlbHnrxEiaFLzGQwRAluqAJ4uypqmb9da9tYeE4K60/eDeNnEAQCfZRyu VdzLBOLMNeZVP8J2b2ahEF0= =C7m7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --KFztAG8eRSV9hGtP--
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