From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jun 17 17:05:54 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1C101065670 for ; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 17:05:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nox@jelal.kn-bremen.de) Received: from smtp.kn-bremen.de (gelbbaer.kn-bremen.de [78.46.108.116]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA0618FC14 for ; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 17:05:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: by smtp.kn-bremen.de (Postfix, from userid 10) id 037771E000EB; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:05:46 +0200 (CEST) Received: from triton8.kn-bremen.de (noident@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by triton8.kn-bremen.de (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q5HH2qEY039491; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:02:52 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from nox@triton8.kn-bremen.de) Received: (from nox@localhost) by triton8.kn-bremen.de (8.14.4/8.14.3/Submit) id q5HH2qJY039490; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:02:52 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from nox) Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:02:52 +0200 (CEST) From: Juergen Lock Message-Id: <201206171702.q5HH2qJY039490@triton8.kn-bremen.de> To: outbackdingo@gmail.com X-Newsgroups: local.list.freebsd.hackers In-Reply-To: References: <4FDDDDE6.2000104@daemonic.se> Organization: X-Mailman-Approved-At: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:13:59 +0000 Cc: Niclas Zeising , FreeBSD Mailing List , Aryeh Friedman Subject: Re: how to turn my computer into a TV X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 17:05:54 -0000 In article you write: >On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Niclas Zeising wrote: >> On 06/17/12 04:14, Aryeh Friedman wrote: >>> >>> I just moved into a very cramped apartment and we only have room for >>> one monitor so it is the computer then I heard it is possible to make >>> it so you can watch TV on your computer.... I know about some this for >>> windows but I am dedicated FreeBSD person... how do I go about doing >>> all the research I need to make sure that the following is true: >>> >>> 1. FreeBSD supports all hardware (and the needed functionality) to >>> watch full screen tv on my computer (extra points of a remote can be >>> used)... NOTE: This hardware must be currently fairly mass market >>> 2. What ports to install (right now my desktop is x11-wm/xfce4) make this >>> happen >>> 3. Any tips on making it optimal >> >> >> This is perhaps not the solution you are looking for, but many modern TV >> screens has a VGA and a DVI input connector, as well as many fairly modern >> computers has HDMI output. DVI is also compatible with HDMI, at least to an >> extent. Perhaps you can find a monitor and use it as a dual-purpose monitor >> instead? >> Regards! >> -- >> Niclas Zeising > >I think hes maybe looking for a tv tuner card to plug into his >computer so he can watch TV on the PC also... >Haupauge makes a few and are compatible with FreeBSD. See Setting Up TV Cards >and a good list is freebsd-multimedia >http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/tvcard.html That handbook chapter only mentions analog bktr(4) tuner cards so it's a bit outdated. Nowadays you can also use cx88-based analog and dvb-t/atsc(?) pci(e) tuner cards driven by the multimedia/cx88 port, as well as a greater variety of usb tuners supported by multimedia/webcamd which runs the Linux v4l/dvb driver code in FreeBSD userland. See http://wiki.freebsd.org/WebcamCompat for some tuners people have reported as working. Another usb atsc tuner that has good chances of working is this one: http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-950Q (at least it seems pretty popular on Linux.) And about tv apps that you can control using a remote (usually via comms/lirc), the most popular ones are multimedia/mythtv and multimedia/vdr, see these pages: http://wiki.freebsd.org/HTPC http://wiki.freebsd.org/MythTV and http://wiki.freebsd.org/VDR as well as multimedia/xbmc-pvr that you can use with vdr as backend as also described in the above vdr wiki page. HTH, :) Juergen