I'm running Red Hat 9 on my home computer with kernel 2.4.20-8. The hardware is a Shuttle XPC SS51G with an 1 AGP slot and 1 PCI slot (which is filled by a 56k modem), integrated video and audio (SiS stuff). I've got XFree 4.3, so my video chip is supported enough that I can watch DVDs. I'm not a gamer, so until now the integrated video has been enough for me.

I'm also a big fan of Japanese drama shows, which are broadcast on public television here in Los Angeles. I'd like to be able to archive them, as they are shown infrequently and I'd like to be able to share them with friends. At this point, I'm looking into buying a TV tuner card that will lets me record the shows to disc and burn them to VCD/SVCD.

I'm a relative linux newbie, and what with xawtv, bttv, gatos and all that other stuff I'm a little disoriented. So I'm looking for advice - if you could start with a semi-clean slate and buy any TV tuner card, and install any software, what would you do? (short of spending a million dollars, switching to another distro (I'm just about settled down with redhat) or using windows, which I dont' have installed)). Also, if possible I'd like to use the empty AGP slot - I don't fancy switching out the modem anytime I want to watch TV.

I appreciate in advance any advice you could give me.

--
Micah

See this thread about half-way down.

Thanks for the helpful answer, fancypiper. I looked over the thread you mentioned and they seemed to be mentioning the Hauppauge WinTV Go card. That seems like a pretty good choice.

http://www.hauppauge.com/html/products.htm

However that would take an empty PCI slot, which I don't have. So I guess I should rephrase my question as:

is there a TV tuner card that runs out of an AGP slot and works in Linux?

Isn't AGP supposed to be better for graphics (high bandwidth, memory stuff)? Why do companies use PCI slots for this - is it so people can sport impressive graphics cards and also use PVRs?

agp is for graphics cards specifically, which a tv tuner is not. the only AGP cards you will get that have tv tuners on them will be cards like the ati all in wonder graphics card, which should work fine under linux, but doens't use the bt878 chipset, so needs to use the less used gatos driver, meaning the ability for recording from it and such like, may not be as good as a more generic 878 card.

Hooray; even though it's disappointing news, that's exactly the answer I was looking for. Thank you very much, acid_kewpie.

Maybe next year I'll have cable/dsl and free up the PCI slot for a Hauppauge card.

got usb? try an external tuner... same chipsets are normally used.

At $80, the WinTV-USB looks like a very possible candidate.

http://www.hauppauge.com/html/usb_data.htm

If it can "make video movies in AVI file format" like it promises, it may be exactly what I need. A little research turns up a guy who had some problems getting his WinTV-USB to work earlier this January:

http://www.spinics.net/lists/vfl/msg03950.html

Also, a potential driver:

http://futux.port5.com/linuxhelp/hardware/wintvusb/

What's a little disturbing is the lack of success stories in a Google search for WinTV-USB and linux. It's gonna take a few more days to think this through.

Hi Msitting,
If u are buying Happauge tv tuner card, go for old model. If you are thingking of using for windows, then go for new model. Most of the new chips are not supported by kernel 2.4.20.

Mostly all new Tv tuner cards of Happauge are constant xx881 chip set. This is not supported by any distros till now. But, it is supported by kernel 2.5.xx.

I bought "Win Tv Radio" of Happauge. I am not able to use it in Linux. But, I am using in windows XP. It is far better than old chipset xx778, xx748 etc.
If you are interseted in buying tv tuner card, first check which all chipset is supported by your distro. Then go for it. There is not much information about the chipset on the website of Happauge.

Before buying, I also checked differnet threads, yet I made mistake of choosing tv tuner card as everybody suggested for Happauge.
Hope, don't make mistake like me.

Yes Subh I fell into the same trap Have you tried getting it working with any success on the 2.5 kernel yet?

OK, so what is the consensus? Are Hauppage's cards worth a shot as a PVR? I don't want to go for a TiVo, I want a PVR on my computer. I used to have an ATI All-In-Wonder 8500DV, and it worked OK in Win2000 (don't kill me, I'm a Linux newbie). The main problem I had with it for Win2000 is that when a scheduled recording was "complete," the window/program did not close. This is especially bad when the volume is up and I'm recording something late at night. When I got into Linux (Red Hat 9.0), I experienced the problems that Chris mentions above about the Gatos drivers - yikes. I never could get any successful recordings with RH9 and the 8500dv. Chris has me leaning towards getting a Hauppage PCI card, but I don't know the difference between the model 880 and their new WinTV 350. I also saw a post that Hauppage's cards also don't close the tv window when a scheduled recording is complete. Does the same thing happen in Linux? If so, I may lean more towards a damn TiVo. To add to the confusion, subh says that the newer Hauppage cards aren't supported by Kernel 2.4.20, which is what I believe I'm running. Are there any other cards out there that can capture/play tv and work as a PVR? Any advice will be much appreciated.

I couldn't find the driver for cx881in 2.6.0 kernel. The card works very well under windows than the old hauppage card.

If you have new Hauppage tv tuner card of chipset cx881, It is not possible to put computer on standby if you are running WindowsXP. Hauppage don't tell the anything about this problem.