Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Bill Davidsen]

I have a lovely collection of capture cards which either don't work or 
are no longer available new. Is there any such card?

Note: I can't tell a client to buy hardware on eBay, or to patch a 
kernel, or commit to providing patched kernel... and we're in 
Time-Warned land, where the signal is a mix of clear digital, 
crypto-digital, and NTSC. I *can* tell someone to spend money to get 
something supported, which they could buy in some small quantity.

I would be happy with a box like the HDhomerun, which does a nice job on 
the tiny list of clear digital signals, the Hauppauge HVR-2250 is ideal, 
but doesn't work because the driver isn't in the kernel and the windows 
stuff doesn't run on ndiswrapper (too complex to support anyway).

Any thoughts, or is it just not currently happening?

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO TMR Associates, Inc

"You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money back."
    - Representative Earl Pomeroy,  Democrat of North Dakota
on the A.I.G. executives who were paid bonuses  after a federal bailout.


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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Boris Epstein]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> I have a lovely collection of capture cards which either don't work or are
> no longer available new. Is there any such card?
>
> Note: I can't tell a client to buy hardware on eBay, or to patch a kernel,
> or commit to providing patched kernel... and we're in Time-Warned land,
> where the signal is a mix of clear digital, crypto-digital, and NTSC. I
> *can* tell someone to spend money to get something supported, which they
> could buy in some small quantity.
>
> I would be happy with a box like the HDhomerun, which does a nice job on the
> tiny list of clear digital signals, the Hauppauge HVR-2250 is ideal, but
> doesn't work because the driver isn't in the kernel and the windows stuff
> doesn't run on ndiswrapper (too complex to support anyway).
>
> Any thoughts, or is it just not currently happening?
>
> --
> bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
>  CTO TMR Associates, Inc
>
> "You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money
> back."
>   - Representative Earl Pomeroy,  Democrat of North Dakota
> on the A.I.G. executives who were paid bonuses  after a federal bailout.
>
>
> --
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>

Osprey 100
http://www.viewcast.com/products/osprey-100

Seems to work just fine for us under OpenSuSE 11.1

Boris.

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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> I have a lovely collection of capture cards which either don't work or are
> no longer available new. Is there any such card?
>
> Note: I can't tell a client to buy hardware on eBay, or to patch a kernel,
> or commit to providing patched kernel... and we're in Time-Warned land,
> where the signal is a mix of clear digital, crypto-digital, and NTSC. I
> *can* tell someone to spend money to get something supported, which they
> could buy in some small quantity.
>
> I would be happy with a box like the HDhomerun, which does a nice job on the
> tiny list of clear digital signals, the Hauppauge HVR-2250 is ideal, but
> doesn't work because the driver isn't in the kernel and the windows stuff
> doesn't run on ndiswrapper (too complex to support anyway).
>
> Any thoughts, or is it just not currently happening?
>
> --
> bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
>  CTO TMR Associates, Inc
>
> "You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money
> back."
>   - Representative Earl Pomeroy,  Democrat of North Dakota
> on the A.I.G. executives who were paid bonuses  after a federal bailout.

There are lots of cards that work.  The big questions lie in what bus
type you need (USB/PCI/PCIe), and what featureset (ATSC, ClearQAM,
analog, IR, etc.)

Might also be nice what your large collection is composed of, since we
might be able to get some of them to work.

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Boris Epstein]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Devin
Heitmueller<dheitmueller@kernellabs.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
>> I have a lovely collection of capture cards which either don't work or are
>> no longer available new. Is there any such card?
>>
>> Note: I can't tell a client to buy hardware on eBay, or to patch a kernel,
>> or commit to providing patched kernel... and we're in Time-Warned land,
>> where the signal is a mix of clear digital, crypto-digital, and NTSC. I
>> *can* tell someone to spend money to get something supported, which they
>> could buy in some small quantity.
>>
>> I would be happy with a box like the HDhomerun, which does a nice job on the
>> tiny list of clear digital signals, the Hauppauge HVR-2250 is ideal, but
>> doesn't work because the driver isn't in the kernel and the windows stuff
>> doesn't run on ndiswrapper (too complex to support anyway).
>>
>> Any thoughts, or is it just not currently happening?
>>
>> --
>> bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
>>  CTO TMR Associates, Inc
>>
>> "You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money
>> back."
>>   - Representative Earl Pomeroy,  Democrat of North Dakota
>> on the A.I.G. executives who were paid bonuses  after a federal bailout.
>
> There are lots of cards that work.  The big questions lie in what bus
> type you need (USB/PCI/PCIe), and what featureset (ATSC, ClearQAM,
> analog, IR, etc.)
>
> Might also be nice what your large collection is composed of, since we
> might be able to get some of them to work.
>
> Devin
>
> --
> Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
> http://www.kernellabs.com
>
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>

Good points Devin!

Actually come to think of it - it is the chipset that determines
compatibility hence there may be many cards sharing the same chipset
that ought to work.

Boris.

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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Bill Davidsen]

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
>   
>> I have a lovely collection of capture cards which either don't work or are
>> no longer available new. Is there any such card?
>>
>> Note: I can't tell a client to buy hardware on eBay, or to patch a kernel,
>> or commit to providing patched kernel... and we're in Time-Warned land,
>> where the signal is a mix of clear digital, crypto-digital, and NTSC. I
>> *can* tell someone to spend money to get something supported, which they
>> could buy in some small quantity.
>>
>> I would be happy with a box like the HDhomerun, which does a nice job on the
>> tiny list of clear digital signals, the Hauppauge HVR-2250 is ideal, but
>> doesn't work because the driver isn't in the kernel and the windows stuff
>> doesn't run on ndiswrapper (too complex to support anyway).
>>
>> Any thoughts, or is it just not currently happening?
>>
>> --
>> bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
>>  CTO TMR Associates, Inc
>>
>> "You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money
>> back."
>>   - Representative Earl Pomeroy,  Democrat of North Dakota
>> on the A.I.G. executives who were paid bonuses  after a federal bailout.
>>     
>
> There are lots of cards that work.  The big questions lie in what bus
> type you need (USB/PCI/PCIe), and what featureset (ATSC, ClearQAM,
> analog, IR, etc.)
>
>   
Though I covered that, the signal of interest is clear QAM and NTSC 
(analog). I haven't seem any cards for busses other than PCI or PCIe, 
USB is only on a dongle (AFAIK). If I could pass access to the bus back 
to a VM I could just run XP under KVM, but that's not exactly supported, 
either.

I was hoping someone would pop up with a solution like a dual mode 
HDhomerun or slingshot, too much to hope.

> Might also be nice what your large collection is composed of, since we
> might be able to get some of them to work.
>   

Nothing with a driver, unfortunately, and much of it obsolete by this 
time, ie. driver now but out of production. When the FCC stopped 
approving non-digital cards a lot of stuff went off the market. I'd go 
with a mix of analog card and HDhomerun if I had to.

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO TMR Associates, Inc

"You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money back."
    - Representative Earl Pomeroy,  Democrat of North Dakota
on the A.I.G. executives who were paid bonuses  after a federal bailout.


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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> Though I covered that, the signal of interest is clear QAM and NTSC
> (analog). I haven't seem any cards for busses other than PCI or PCIe, USB is
> only on a dongle (AFAIK). If I could pass access to the bus back to a VM I
> could just run XP under KVM, but that's not exactly supported, either.

Well, I'm not sure you really answered the question.  What bus type
specifically are you looking for?  For PCI you can go with HVR-1600 or
PCTV 800i.  For USB you can get HVR-950q or HVR-1950 if you want an
onboard MPEG encoder.  There are lots of products which are currently
supported.  A good amount of this also depends on which distro and
version you are interested in (since that effects which kernel it is
up to relative to when support was added for products).

Have you looked at the product matrices on the Wiki:

http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_USB_Devices
http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCI_Cards
http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCIe_Cards

> I was hoping someone would pop up with a solution like a dual mode HDhomerun
> or slingshot, too much to hope.
>
>> Might also be nice what your large collection is composed of, since we
>> might be able to get some of them to work.
>>
>
> Nothing with a driver, unfortunately, and much of it obsolete by this time,
> ie. driver now but out of production. When the FCC stopped approving
> non-digital cards a lot of stuff went off the market. I'd go with a mix of
> analog card and HDhomerun if I had to.

Well, the notion of "nothing with a driver" is pretty subjective.  We
are adding driver support for products all the time, and if you threw
out a list of product names they might now be supported or could be
supported with minimal effort.

Devin

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http://www.kernellabs.com

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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Bill Davidsen]

I thank all the folks who wrote me directly, but... see below.

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
>> Though I covered that, the signal of interest is clear QAM and NTSC
>> (analog). I haven't seem any cards for busses other than PCI or PCIe, USB is
>> only on a dongle (AFAIK). If I could pass access to the bus back to a VM I
>> could just run XP under KVM, but that's not exactly supported, either.
> 
> Well, I'm not sure you really answered the question.  What bus type
> specifically are you looking for?  For PCI you can go with HVR-1600 or
> PCTV 800i.  For USB you can get HVR-950q or HVR-1950 if you want an
> onboard MPEG encoder.  There are lots of products which are currently
> supported.  A good amount of this also depends on which distro and
> version you are interested in (since that effects which kernel it is
> up to relative to when support was added for products).
> 
> Have you looked at the product matrices on the Wiki:
> 
> http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_USB_Devices
> http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCI_Cards
> http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCIe_Cards
> 
>> I was hoping someone would pop up with a solution like a dual mode HDhomerun
>> or slingshot, too much to hope.
>>
>>> Might also be nice what your large collection is composed of, since we
>>> might be able to get some of them to work.
>>>
Since you quoted the HVR-950Q as working, I tried one of those. Someone else 
said the ATI HDTV-Wonder works. Neither do. I tried all of the programs people 
swore work with these cards: tvtime, xawtv, cheese, and vlc. Mythtv appears to 
need the whole system tuned to be a pvr, not the intent here, users want to 
monitor CNN, MSNBC, and similar news or financial channels in a window without 
needing to get a TV for each seat.

And after all that I am still at ground zero, not only nothing I would date try 
to give to an end user, but nothing I want to use myself, tuning by frequencies 
in MHz, good grief! The kernel loads drivers and makes entries in /dev/dvb 
and/or /dev/videoN, but none of the software people suggested does anything useful.

>> Nothing with a driver, unfortunately, and much of it obsolete by this time,
>> ie. driver now but out of production. When the FCC stopped approving
>> non-digital cards a lot of stuff went off the market. I'd go with a mix of
>> analog card and HDhomerun if I had to.
> 
> Well, the notion of "nothing with a driver" is pretty subjective.  We
> are adding driver support for products all the time, and if you threw
> out a list of product names they might now be supported or could be
> supported with minimal effort.
> 
> Devin
> 


-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 1:37 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> Since you quoted the HVR-950Q as working, I tried one of those. Someone else
> said the ATI HDTV-Wonder works. Neither do. I tried all of the programs
> people swore work with these cards: tvtime, xawtv, cheese, and vlc. Mythtv
> appears to need the whole system tuned to be a pvr, not the intent here,
> users want to monitor CNN, MSNBC, and similar news or financial channels in
> a window without needing to get a TV for each seat.

Well since I did the support for the HVR-950Q, I'm pretty sure it
works. :-)  With regards to the "ATI HDTV-Wonder" card you referred
to, there are many cards with that name, so you would need to be more
specific (providing a model number and bus type).  For example, I did
the work for the "ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB".  For analog support, both
of the above cards work fine with tvtime.

If you have a specific case that is causing you problems, please
provide details as to exactly which card you are trying to use, which
distro and application you are using, and what errors you are seeing
and we will see if we can help you debug your problem.  But saying
vague things like "nothing works" isn't really a constructive way to
improve your situation.

> And after all that I am still at ground zero, not only nothing I would date
> try to give to an end user, but nothing I want to use myself, tuning by
> frequencies in MHz, good grief! The kernel loads drivers and makes entries
> in /dev/dvb and/or /dev/videoN, but none of the software people suggested
> does anything useful.

You only need to tune to something specifying MHz if you are using the
command line tools.  The GUI applications have built in mechanisms to
change channels.

I agree that there is plenty of room for improvement in the
application space.  Feel free to roll up your sleeves and help out
(that's how I got involved in the project, after all).  Given the
number of devices people are demanding support for, we are quite
understaffed and could use all the help we could get.

Devin

-- 
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http://www.kernellabs.com

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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Bill Davidsen]

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 1:37 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
>   
>> Since you quoted the HVR-950Q as working, I tried one of those. Someone else
>> said the ATI HDTV-Wonder works. Neither do. I tried all of the programs
>> people swore work with these cards: tvtime, xawtv, cheese, and vlc. Mythtv
>> appears to need the whole system tuned to be a pvr, not the intent here,
>> users want to monitor CNN, MSNBC, and similar news or financial channels in
>> a window without needing to get a TV for each seat.
>>     
>
> Well since I did the support for the HVR-950Q, I'm pretty sure it
> works. :-)  With regards to the "ATI HDTV-Wonder" card you referred
> to, there are many cards with that name, so you would need to be more
> specific (providing a model number and bus type).  For example, I did
> the work for the "ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB".  For analog support, both
> of the above cards work fine with tvtime.
>
>   
Do you have some particular application with which you think it "works?" 
If by works you mean a /dv/video0 and /dev/dvb/* ar created and the 
kernel log shows no errors, then it works. By works I mean there is some 
application (I listed several) which actually has audio and video, and 
the number of such I can identify is still zero. When analog cards were 
being made virtually every application worked fine,

> If you have a specific case that is causing you problems, please
> provide details as to exactly which card you are trying to use, which
> distro and application you are using, and what errors you are seeing
> and we will see if we can help you debug your problem.  But saying
> vague things like "nothing works" isn't really a constructive way to
> improve your situation.
>
>   
I went out and got the HVR-950Q because you said it worked, as noted 
above the kernel like it but nothing I can find will use it usefully, I 
posted the lspci -vvvv for the ATI HDTV-Wonder, what exactly more do you 
need to identify a specific card? This is the problem I've had for 
years, that cards with the same part number aren't the same part. :-(
>> And after all that I am still at ground zero, not only nothing I would date
>> try to give to an end user, but nothing I want to use myself, tuning by
>> frequencies in MHz, good grief! The kernel loads drivers and makes entries
>> in /dev/dvb and/or /dev/videoN, but none of the software people suggested
>> does anything useful.
>>     
>
> You only need to tune to something specifying MHz if you are using the
> command line tools.  The GUI applications have built in mechanisms to
> change channels.
>
> I agree that there is plenty of room for improvement in the
> application space.  Feel free to roll up your sleeves and help out
> (that's how I got involved in the project, after all).  Given the
> number of devices people are demanding support for, we are quite
> understaffed and could use all the help we could get.
>
> Devin
>
>   


-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO TMR Associates, Inc

"You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money back."
    - Representative Earl Pomeroy,  Democrat of North Dakota
on the A.I.G. executives who were paid bonuses  after a federal bailout.


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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 5:48 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> Do you have some particular application with which you think it "works?" If
> by works you mean a /dv/video0 and /dev/dvb/* ar created and the kernel log
> shows no errors, then it works. By works I mean there is some application (I
> listed several) which actually has audio and video, and the number of such I
> can identify is still zero. When analog cards were being made virtually
> every application worked fine,

There's no need to be patronizing.  Since the 950q support required me
to add around 3000 lines to the codebase, I am quite capable of
distinguishing the difference between a /dev/video0 device file being
created and a product actually working.  That sort of attitude might
be appropriate when dealing with tech support for a company you just
gave money to, but probably isn't the best approach to get help from a
group of volunteer developers.

Regarding apps that are known to work:  tvtime.  mplayer.  I don't
"think" it works.  I *know* it works, at least in my environment as
well as several dozen other users who have done testing and provided
feedback.

Since you are comparing against older devices where you believed
"every application worked fine", I am sure you are aware that all the
applications have issues with audio on raw analog capture devices, and
that the way it is dealt with varies by application.  Tvtime doesn't
support it at all - you have to run tvtime in conjunction with
arecord/aplay in a separate window.  mplayer allows you to specify the
location of the ALSA record device as a command line argument.  None
of this is specific to newer devices as the apps have the same
problems with older devices as well.

>> If you have a specific case that is causing you problems, please
>> provide details as to exactly which card you are trying to use, which
>> distro and application you are using, and what errors you are seeing
>> and we will see if we can help you debug your problem.  But saying
>> vague things like "nothing works" isn't really a constructive way to
>> improve your situation.
>>
>>
>
> I went out and got the HVR-950Q because you said it worked, as noted above
> the kernel like it but nothing I can find will use it usefully, I posted the
> lspci -vvvv for the ATI HDTV-Wonder, what exactly more do you need to
> identify a specific card? This is the problem I've had for years, that cards
> with the same part number aren't the same part. :-(

I'm making an active effort to understand what is unique about your
environment so we can figure out why it doesn't work for you while so
many others are reporting success.  I just double checked the thread
and don't see the lspci output for the ATI card as you suggested.  Did
you post it on some other thread of discussion?

It's probably also worth mentioning that the 950q analog support was
added recently (March), so if your distro is too old it will not be in
there yet (in which case you won't see the /dev/video0 device at all).

Devin


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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Bill Davidsen]

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 1:37 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
>> Since you quoted the HVR-950Q as working, I tried one of those. Someone else
>> said the ATI HDTV-Wonder works. Neither do. I tried all of the programs
>> people swore work with these cards: tvtime, xawtv, cheese, and vlc. Mythtv
>> appears to need the whole system tuned to be a pvr, not the intent here,
>> users want to monitor CNN, MSNBC, and similar news or financial channels in
>> a window without needing to get a TV for each seat.
> 
> Well since I did the support for the HVR-950Q, I'm pretty sure it
> works. :-)  With regards to the "ATI HDTV-Wonder" card you referred
> to, there are many cards with that name, so you would need to be more
> specific (providing a model number and bus type).  For example, I did
> the work for the "ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB".  For analog support, both
> of the above cards work fine with tvtime.
> 
> If you have a specific case that is causing you problems, please
> provide details as to exactly which card you are trying to use, which
> distro and application you are using, and what errors you are seeing
> and we will see if we can help you debug your problem.  But saying
> vague things like "nothing works" isn't really a constructive way to
> improve your situation.
> 
No, it was actually a clue, but everyone assumed it was just a failure to give 
details. Today I found (looking for something else) that the issue seems to be 
with the recent Fedora PAE kernels, both F11 release and the F12 pre-release on 
rawhide. Using a non-PAE kernel causes the cards and dongles to suddenly show 
video instead of "no signal." Of course I lose most of my RAM with that setup, 
not a happy situation.

The ATI HDTV Wonder now gets signal for the NTSC channels, but no sound. I think 
I need to find an app which can use the digital sound, or populate the header 
for a cable similar to that used by a CD analog feed.

> You only need to tune to something specifying MHz if you are using the
> command line tools.  The GUI applications have built in mechanisms to
> change channels.
> 
Can you name "the GUI applications" since none of the ones I've found which even 
claim to work with digital has a functional tuner. Note, there is a bug in the 
Intel video driver, I can't use xine, if that's the only one, it kills X on 
start every time, although I'm assured it will be fixed.

> I agree that there is plenty of room for improvement in the
> application space.  Feel free to roll up your sleeves and help out
> (that's how I got involved in the project, after all).  Given the
> number of devices people are demanding support for, we are quite
> understaffed and could use all the help we could get.
> 
Rather than a new device (the HVR-2500 would have been nice) I'd like to find 
something which works now and is still made.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

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Re: Is there any working video capture card which works and is still made?

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Bill Davidsen<davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> No, it was actually a clue, but everyone assumed it was just a failure to
> give details. Today I found (looking for something else) that the issue
> seems to be with the recent Fedora PAE kernels, both F11 release and the F12
> pre-release on rawhide. Using a non-PAE kernel causes the cards and dongles
> to suddenly show video instead of "no signal." Of course I lose most of my
> RAM with that setup, not a happy situation.

Interesting.  I am not sure how much testing is done with PAE kernels.
 Can you elaborate as to which cards started working as a result of
switching to the non-PAE kernel, as this might help us narrow down
whether the problem is with a specific driver or with the v4l2
framework code shared by all the drivers?

> The ATI HDTV Wonder now gets signal for the NTSC channels, but no sound. I
> think I need to find an app which can use the digital sound, or populate the
> header for a cable similar to that used by a CD analog feed.

See the previous email I sent in regards to this.   The apps typically
don't know how to find the audio device on raw video capture products.

>> You only need to tune to something specifying MHz if you are using the
>> command line tools.  The GUI applications have built in mechanisms to
>> change channels.
>>
> Can you name "the GUI applications" since none of the ones I've found which
> even claim to work with digital has a functional tuner. Note, there is a bug
> in the Intel video driver, I can't use xine, if that's the only one, it
> kills X on start every time, although I'm assured it will be fixed.

This depends on what you mean by "digital".  If when you say
"digital", you mean ATSC/QAM, then I can tell you that most of the
apps out there are designed for either analog or digital but not both.
 Mplayer and MythTV do support both ATSC/QAM as well as analog.  Apps
like tvtime only support analog.

>> I agree that there is plenty of room for improvement in the
>> application space.  Feel free to roll up your sleeves and help out
>> (that's how I got involved in the project, after all).  Given the
>> number of devices people are demanding support for, we are quite
>> understaffed and could use all the help we could get.
>>
> Rather than a new device (the HVR-2500 would have been nice) I'd like to
> find something which works now and is still made.

I was referring to the state of the various analog applications as
opposed to the device driver support.  Most of the drivers themselves
are fine but the usability of the applications makes it a rather high
barrier to entry for inexperienced users.  I certainly had similar
frustrations when I was tried to watch TV with my first tuner.

I assumed you were referring to the HVR-2250 when you said "HVR-2500".
 Note that the 2250 does not have any analog support at all in the
Linux driver (in case you felt inclined to pick one up and were
expecting it to work).

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

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