Hi all,

Please forgive me, but this is largely a duplicate of a post I've submitted at one of my old web-stomping-grounds, vcdhelp.com (aka videohelp.com). I'm fairly short on time, so I haven't had a chance to tailor this to LQ much - hope it doesn't show to much. So anyway...

I and am building a media center / mythtv box, which I anticipate will run ubuntu; not sure what version yet (dapper seems more a little more solid than edgy to me so far - as is to be expected), and I am open to persuasion when it comes to other distros - I've messed about with a few others.

What I'm aiming to do is build a machine which can watch/record either freeview (UK digital) or the output from my cable tv box.

My thinking at the moment is to get a hybrid card which can have an aerial plugged into it and receive freeview, and also handle analogue capture from my (ntl - UK cable TV provider) cable box. (Is this the best way of getting the output from the cable box into my media center? any comments?)

The cube-style barebones machine I'm getting only has one PCI and one PCI express slot, so I don't think that a separate digital and analogue card is possible - hence my interest in a dual/hybrid card.

I have an order in at dabs.com for the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1100 card, which has a DVB tuner and composite / s-video inputs. This makes it sound like it would be a good candidate for my digital/analogue requirements. I've read that this card is quite well supported in linux, and get the impression that Hauppauge is a good bet in general for linux users when it comes to capture/TV cards. However this page on the gentoo wiki about the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1100 card seems to suggest that capturing from the analogue inputs might be problematic in terms of the audio.

Does anyone have any pearls of wisdom to offer me about this project? I'm particularly interested in whether this TV card seems a good way to go, or whether I should look for alternatives.

For example, I still have an old analogue bt8x8-based PCI avermedia tv98 card (which I reviewed on vcdhelp.com what seems like many moons ago). I could use this as the only PCI card in my new box, and install a digital capture card in the PCI express slot perhaps?

Incidentally, the LCD TV I'm buying as part of this system has composite, s-video, component, SCART and VGA/d-sub inputs as well as HDMI and the standard RF aerial. I'm thinking of using the onboard VGA on my barebones macine at first, although I'll consider getting an HDMI video card if this doesn't produce good results (this would occupy the PCIe slot, I suppose.)

I'd be interested if anyone had any thoughts on connectivity as well... The TV I've ordered is this one: http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?QuickLinx=4C4W.

Prompt responses would be good, as I've got an order in with dabs which is awaiting stock on one item, and I think I can still change the items I've ordered for a couple of days.

thanks in advance LQ members,
Drew.