Improving FreeBSD's hardware compatibility - TV tuners

[Dieter]

> analog TV? what's that?  isn't everyone going digital?  (yes, I know
> that analog TV will be with us for a long time due to security cams
> and other uses..)

Broadcast analog TV will be going away soon.  Yet there will be
continue to be some uses for analog capture.  So I recommend
concentrating first on tuners that handle both analog and digital.

Work is in progress on the Dvico Fusion5 tuners.  The Fusion5
is nice because it is available in a USB version, which does
not require a slot.

Another tuner worthy of a BSD driver is the HD3000.  Does both
analog and digital in a variety of formats (NTSC, PAL, 8VSB, QAM,
etc.)  Has working Linux drivers with source.  The only tuner I
know of that is documented to be friendly to fair use rights.

The Fusion5 and HD3000 use different chips.  If one doesn't work
well in a particular reception environment, the other might.