Preferred method of tv signal input? What is a capture card?

[roberto99]

Hi all
I do not understand what is the preferred method of tv signal input.

Lets say I have digital tv for which i have an external box I NEED to use (cause I need to use the (decryption) card provided) which is provided from my provider...where/to what piece of hardware do i connect it to send the tv signal to? to a so called capture device (which I do not know what it is! explanation and exampels (working in Switzerland/Europe) would be appreciated) or something else (which sould be installed on the core I guess)?

And if I just get analogue tv signal from my wall plug, then I connect it to a tv card installed on the core?
Or can you point me to the right documentation? I did not find it.

Thanks for help
cheers
Roberto

[KARIM1]

um best bet google capture card (its a pci card that is the input for ur settop box to connect to) i will hopefully be using a hauppage 150 for the input .
http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=capture+card

btw i dont know what cards are actualy suported may be best to check that before purchasing

i hope i helped in some way

[roberto99]

Ok, so would it not be possible to input the tv signal right in to the graphics card? Or are there no cards with video input?

[albal]

A capture card will only capture a video signal.

You wish to connect your TV Antenna I guess so you will need a TV Tuner Card.  This will take in the RF Signal from the Antenna Cable (many different TV channels carried on the same cable) and then will enable you to tune to channels and be able to stream these to different media directors if it is installed in the core.  If you want to view more than one Station at a time you will need to have the required number of tuners.  Some TV Cards have multiple tuners or you can use multiple cards.  You can check the wiki:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Category:TV_Cards

Or the MythTV site to give you some clues.  Better to go with something that is known to work rather than try and hack something that may appear to be a bargain.

Don't forget the cards will cover DVB-T (Regular Digital TV),  DVB-S (Sat) and DVB-C (Cable TV).  If you get HD channels then you will need a HD Card which will allow you to view SD Channels too.  If you want to view more than one type then you will need additional cards.

Alternatively you can use a Set Top Box under the control of LinuxMCE and then use a video capture device (which will capture Composite, S-Video or maybe even HD Sources) but you won't get as much functionality with LinuxMCE.  For example being able to view the program guide and book events and series to record.

Good luck,
Al

[roberto99]

Ok, thanks

So I guess the best is to use a tv card. But then the problem will be (and I guess its not a very simple problem to solve) how to make a card (dvb-c) work as my set top box, because it requires the "(decoder) card" from my provider...

I researched in google and I found out that our tv provider does "not allow" to recive dvb-c on the pc. This would mean that I would be restricted to dvb-t or dvb-s, right?

Any idea, pointer or hack for this problem?
cheers
Roberto

[KARIM1]

iv had the same problem, but luckily what i did is use the arial out from my set top box and linkled that to the arial input on my capture card