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Plextor PVRs Now Support Linux
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Mar 08, 2005 08:40 PM
from the excellent-news dept.
from the excellent-news dept.
planetjay writes "Plextor
PVRs now support Linux with an open source SDK for their ConvertX
PVR external USB TV tuner/encoder
This is great news for Linux PVR users who want to use an external
device with hardware based MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/DivX encoding in their MythTV or Freevo homebuilt PVR.
"Plextor is strongly committed to supporting the Open Source Software
movement with free development tools that help speed the creation of
next-generation Linux-based video software," said Dirk Peters,
director of marketing, Plextor."
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Kudos (Score:4, Insightful)
Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
can take the space that a pci card would have, put a usb2 card in it's place,
and have multiple tuners, since mythtv has support for multiple tuners, case
space considerations are no longer such a factor.
Now, we just have to see if it's any good.
SealBeater
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
Not to take away from what Plextor has done though, this looks like it might be the solution for some people.
Parent
Only NTSC tv tuner (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Only NTSC tv tuner (Score:5, Informative)
The M402U is just like the TV402U but without a tuner, and it's also supported in Linux. Both of these devices can accept NTSC or PAL baseband inputs on the S-Video and Composite ports, regardless of the frequency bands the on-board tuner supports.
Parent
It seems there a pal version to :p (Score:3, Informative)
Tivo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tivo? (Score:5, Informative)
They do use linux as the base part of the TiVo, but all the juicy stuff is propietary AFAIK.
The SDK is for the home media option only, i.e. to develop applications that reside outside the tivo on a PC, and add functionality over the network... which is pretty cool and people are doing cool stuff already with it, but it's not a full blown access to TiVo's innards...
*shrug*
e.
Parent
What's the easiest? (Score:5, Interesting)
...or is there no easy way to BYOPVR? I mean, I've heard about MythTV and Freevo and all sorts of hardware, etc, and as much as I think Linux can be a great tool, sometimes it's a royal FPITA to get thing configured & compiled right, make everything work. I'm not a kung-fu master sysadmin, just a guy who's done his fair share of ./configure, make && make install.
If I don't want to fuck around with making sure I've got all the right hardware pieces just perfect, what're my options for buying something pre-built that will work well, no monthly subscription fee, etc?
Re:What's the easiest? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What's the easiest? (Score:3, Informative)
You need a compatible TV tuner (Hauppauge PVR-350), a video card with TV and 64MB or more memory, a software MPEG decoder, a DVD drive, a sound card, and a compatible remote ($35 from pcalchemy.com)
XP MCE OEM is available from Newegg, the official MS remote is available at pcalchemy.com.
That's about it. PVR works, the FM tuner on the PVR-350 works, D
Re:What's the easiest? (Score:4, Insightful)
They have on screen guide data and schedulers.
You also get the added benefit of being able to record a dvd in realtime.
I did a good bit of research on them some time ago and there are some nice models out there. Some of the units are really pricey, but you can get a smaller HD model for 600$.
Besides pricey, the real drawback to a pre-built, ready to roll-out pvr like some panasonic units is they use EPG (Electronic Program Guide) data. So your guide stream has to be sucked out of the video stream. (I'm not sure if its compatible with PSIP (Digital Television guide data protocol).
However, it's been months since I've done any investigation and I'm sure things have changed a bit. I'm sure a casual google search will reveal something for you and I do believe there are a few places selling pre-built media boxes with myth and freevo. *I've even seen shuttle controls, but no one sells them that way*
If open source isn't your thing, you can always go the windows route and try out BeyondTV. However, for all of its features, it only ships with WM9 support for mpeg4 now. (Though I wrote a python script using mencoder to work with BTV to compress using divx) (There was also something off about width/height issues if you weren't using DivX pro)
Having used BTV and MythTV extensively I can say that MythTV really does a great job competing with a commercial app such as BTV.
I like both of them a great deal, but I've currently switched to MythTV and probably will remain a mythtv user for a long time.
Parent
Re:What's the easiest? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wishful thinking (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd be all over this device if it would work with an HD feed from satellite.
500gb media center. (Score:5, Informative)
I have been planning on buying one of the plextor units for a while, I like the idea of hardware encoding directly to mpeg-4, and I like plextor products, the have made the most reliable CD burners I've ever owned. I like the linux option, that seems like a good idea, but whatever I do I simply want it to be as versatile as possible, and Windows MCE is not versatile.
Hats off to Plextor (Score:5, Insightful)
Released under the GPL(this will probertly be included in the kernel pretty soon i guess?), V4L2 support and code samples.
I can hardly wait for gstreamer (and it's v4l2 source element) to get a bit more stable/functional, and stuff like gstsharp gets included in the mono stack. I imagine we'll start to see a hole bunch of neat video applications.
as opposed to Hauppauge's lack of support (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily for Hauppauge, there is currently nothing to worry about with the Plextor PVR having a MSRP of $199. But if that price ever comes down
what about the broadcast flag? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is important is to be able to discern whether this pvr hardware or any of the other pvr hardware has the broadcast flag enabled so you know which ones to avoid.
One of the things that worried me was the pvr pci cards themselves. I'm no expert on pci technology, so the concern is how long before the cards are obsolete? I have some older computers that use the old slot technology (ISA?), and those cards are now useless. Ended up having to buy new cards. From what I've read, the PCI Express slots are smaller and use serial technology, so they are incompatible with the current pci cards. And after PCI Express? PCI-X?
What happens to all the pci pvr cards when the motherboards start including PCI Express? They are already adding the slots. It looks like they are mixing the PCI Express with the regular PCI slots, similar to what they did with the old transition to PCI. The irony is that the pvr cards would benefit tremendously from PCI Express. I've been thinking of buying two over-the-air digital cards, one the air2pc and the other the 3000 card (can't remember the rest of the name right now) so that I spread my risks. I've also planned to buy two pvr-350s, for a total of 4 cards. I already am figuring that the limitation with recording from the 4 total cards simultaneously would be the pci bus (raid would eliminate the hard drive i/o bottleneck).
The reason for sticking 4 cards in one backend for mythtv would be to keep electricity costs reasonable. One of the things I've noticed that many people ignore is the cost of running a computer 24/7. This is the problem with multiple backends for mythtv (and seti@home). If one backend can be used for recording and playback, that keeps the electricity costs at a minimum. Add a second backend and electricity costs double.
I've been watching the mythtv user list recently, as well as the irc channels for mythtv and knoppmyth so I can figure out where is the best place to buy all of the cards, the air2pc, the 3000, the pvr-250/350. It looks like some places are out of stock on them from time to time. And pricewatch is no help. Being out of stock brings up the original worries, that the cards sell out as they are made without a large stockpile, which makes it more likely that the broadcast flag will appear in cards sooner than the deadline because of the reasons I outlined above and because there is no old stock to work off.
The card listed in this post would be better than the pci cards if the hardware has all the functionality of the pci cards. The reason being that the connection, usb, would be more likely to outlast pci slots which are being obsoleted by the pci express. As for whether the bandwidth of usb 2.0 is an issue over a pci slot, I can't speak to that. But it keeps the pvr hardware working when the motherboard/computer becomes obsolete and finally fails.
Thanks, Hollings, and the rest of the Senators for pushing for the broadcast flag. Hope you choke on your campaign contributions and honorariums.
A list of stores to purchase the pvr-250/350 and air2pc and 3000 cards would be greatly appreciated. More than one reliable source would be appreciated as well. And the ir blaster also.
Comments about bandwidth requirements on the pci bus would be welcome also. Thanks.
They have donated one of these to the Myth Creator (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Any advice on hardware encoders? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:gee (Score:4, Informative)
you basically can use almost any DVR with an external satellite set top box. You just route the video/audio output of the STB to the DVR/encoding card and use an IR blaster or serial cable to control the STB (i.e. change the channels at the appropriate time)
The only rub really would be if it's an HDTV satellite service, as that's a different wrinkle =)
e.
Parent
Re:gee (Score:4, Informative)
Well not ALL satellite traffic is encrypted. There's a ton of FTA DVB satellite signals [planetdvb.com] out there... even hidef ones (ok they are pbs, but still... mmmmm NOVA...
There are a few HDTV cards that CAN decode unencrypted QAM signal via digital cable, but that depends on your cable company not encrypting which is hit or miss...
There's also the possibility of pulling the HDTV content over firewire (and controlling the STB via firewire) and I believe the latest mythtv
*Shrug* so I guess you're basically right, but it's not out of the question, but there's not a good legal way to decrypt digital cable (or directV/dishnetwork) like using a CableCard in some HDTV's now...
e.
Parent
Re:gee (Score:3, Interesting)
Decrypting actually isn't so CPU intensive. I used to record/decrypt HD off sat (DVB) easily with a lowly Athlon XP 2000+, and cpu load was rather low. I think memory speed/latency and such might be more of a concern. (AFAIK, some cards can also do the decrypting itself in hardware, you just send it the proper keys)
As for decoding, you don't need so much
Re:PVRs, not PVR's (Score:3, Informative)
Just because an error is moderately widespread doesn't mean it's no longer an error -- and indeed, there are certainly many [rutgers.edu] dissenting [acronymsearch.com] opinions [jhsph.edu] with regard to the acceptability of using apostrophes to pluralize acronyms.
I never understood the old reasoning behind something like "PVRs." That just doesn't make any sense. "Personal Video Recorderss" eh?
The acronym is for an individual unit -- a PVR is a personal video recorder, not a "personal video recorders". "P
No, it's something totally different (Score:5, Informative)
Parent