TV-Tuner cards ( NTSC / PAL / SECAM ) - which works best?

[Tom Evans]

On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 16:53 -0700, Fritz Katz wrote:
> --- Fritz Katz [Thu, 22 May 2008 13:31:07 -0700 (PDT)
..
> My task is to put together a system that can ship
> world-wide, be able to display any TV signal, and have
> all the capabilites that FreeBSD can provide
> (internet, graphics, games). Potential applications
> are huge. For example, running JAVA the system could
> be used to build a low-cost Cable (OCAP in the US or
> DVB in Europe) or satellite (DirecTV, DISH, etc)
> Set-top box.
> 
> We just need to find which of these manufacturers can
> deliver a robust "Combo / Hybrid" tuner under FreeBSD:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_tuner#Manufacturers
> 

I doubt you will find a 'one size fits all' box. Just in the UK, you can
receive DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-C and (coming soon!) DVB-C2.
DVB-{T,S,S2} can also be used for 'pay TV' using a CAM. I know of one
card (without even Linux drivers) that does DVB-C and DVB-S. The only
DVB-S2 cards I know only support DVB-S/S2. There are some DVB-T cards
that support either DVB-C or DVB-S, but none that support DVB-S2.

Hi-def in the UK is available over DVB-S and DVB-S2 (and presumably over
DVB-C as well, unsure), and is usually very high bitrate MPEG 4 AVC
MBAFF, which is EXTREMELY hard to decode in real time for a general
purpose computer. This either means you need a very fast (expensive)
computer, or you don't have hi-def support. This makes it very
unappealing - cheap and crap or expensive and not-quite-so-crap.

For the US market, it is much easier (I believe), as most of their HD
content is delivered as MPEG-2, which is much easier to decode.

Tom
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