Anyone bought one of these yet?

http://www.pchdtv.com/

I was disappointed to see the MPEG decoding all done in software, so it'll require a decent processor (1.2GHz pentium is required I think).

It claims to mesh well with MythTV.
It ignores the broadcast flag
It's supported for Linux, no Windows support.
Hardware decoding can be acheived with certain nVidia cards (ok, that that's pretty cool)

It looks pretty cool, especially if you're a *nix dork like me.

Price is attractive too, at only $190.

Discuss.

Brett

Just got mine -- haven't installed it yet, but will be using with MythTV.

Stay tuned.

Anyone you know ever try this one?
It's got the decoder on board.

myHDTV MDP-120


http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/...o/mdp120_pb.asp


Of course it can't do QAM yadda-numbers, but I think it's pretty solid
for OTA, which is better anyway, if you can get it.

Not a fan of the softcards, I mean to process HD content that means
you need a dedicated 2Ghz+ box, and if someone goes to check their hotmail
the whole thing starts jumpin.

I haven't used it (pchdtv) but I don't like the fact that it does not have a digital audio out. I have a nice receiver and would hate to use my dumb soundcard to decode the sound. i am still waiting for another card to hit linux.

Looks interesting does it work in linux?

Hey Tux, ever considered the DVICO HDTV card? unfortunately also software decoder-based - obviously requires a lot of power on the PC; I'm running mine on a 3.0 Ghz. Intel- based 512MB RAM and ATI 9200SE 128MB video card and seems to work great. I'm in the process of "MythTVing" it in FC3(I hate Windoz) - using this driver here: http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~chrisp/DVICO-Linux. It does have excellent digital sound output though SPIF port connected to my Harman Kardon Receiver's digital port.
Bottom line is, if one is looking to going HDTV card route with linux, the guiding principle ought to be not only driver availability but also a proven-working model with your specific card(unless you're a serious linux guru who can and has time to write their own driver) - I went with DVICO HDTV card for this very reason after shopping around for some time.

I will have to look into it I have not heard of any cards (other than pchdtv) that work in linux yet and I have been holding out.

How much cpu is used?

I got a athlon 2000xp is that to weak?

Hmm... Can it not send the audio out the S/PDIF of your so equiped sound card? If there was something in the pcHDTV that precluded that, that would have been aweful silly of the designer.

Reguarding softcards... to me, it seems that if you already have an nVidia card with MPEG decoding hardware, it seems silly to pay for the decoder again on your HD card. If you don't have such an nVidia card, I would still want a software decoder; it offers so much more flexibilty. Say they offer some new-fangled mode on HD broadcasts. It's expensive to upgrade the hardware to support it, it's cheap to upgrade the software though. I've learned one thing at work (I develope software radios): make the hardware as generic as possible, and leave as much to the software as you possibly can. It's SO much easier to change and update.

From a system perspective, it seems most sensible to partition the design such that the HD card only does the RF downconversion and m-VSB demod, essentialy spitting an MPEG stream... Someplace else we have a blob that does MPEG decoding (nVidia card for instance), and the PC can route the info around as needed, essentially acting as a switch that sends the appropriate MPEG stream (from the HD card, the DVD player, etc) to the decoder on the video card...

That's just what I would do.

I'm not sure that we can get a digital stream from the pcHDTV to the sound card. If it's just a software limitation, bring it on! I wish this pcHDTV was open source hardware, ie they made the schematic available. I'd be interested to take a gander.

What're the part numbers on the giant ICs? I wonder what this hardware can do...

I would ove to see the schematics as well that would be great.



good point about the spdif on the sound card I forgot about that as I just got one with spdif.
And good point about the nvidia card with the decoder on it. I dont have one as far as I know its a geforce 4 ti slightly older card. But if it has a decoder on it then sweet.

Never known anyone to use it with linux.
Reading around it seems there is little to no linux support.

I completely agree, and you are right, without considering cost, it is definitely the best way to go. Mainly for the reasons you sited, reconfigurability and adaptability.

Now consider cost is an issue, then the on board decoder is nice, because you can stick it in a cheaper older PC and your good to go.

If I were going to go the serious computer and software card route, I might just go with a set-top box hardware solution, 1) because it actually ends up being cheaper (assuming you don't already have a semi serious computer you can make into a HTPC), and other normal humans can operate it without risk of crashing your PC.