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Old 2nd April 2009
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diw diw is offline
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Default TV.

Hiya.

I broke the antenna mount off my tv card (moving network cables).
Teevee is about the only reason I dual boot Windows.
I would much rather write shell scripts during commercials than batch files. :]
Opportunity presents itself to buy a new tv card - one with an OpenBSD driver.

According to the OpenBSD/i386 page, the only driver available is the Brooktree (bktr).

The list looks pretty much the same last time I went shopping. :]
I had a look at CVS and apart from general tidy up there hasn't been much done to the driver since it arrived five years ago.
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvswe...y=date#dirlist

Are there any other drivers for tv on OpenBSD?
Does Brooktree (or any other driver) do digital tv?

I want digital and analogue.
Would I be better off buying a Tivo and using a capture card?
I expect if I do that I will still be in square one - finding a capture card supported by OpenBSD which I suppose will mean Brooktree. :]

Best wishes.
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Old 2nd April 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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There are 2 types of video capturing devices supported by OpenBSD, the legacy bktr(4) based chipsets.. and.. USB Video Class compliant devices, supported by uvideo(4).

The former is really the only real option for TV capture.. I haven't been able to find any UVC compliant TV tuners, most UVC devices are web cameras.

Still, I'm not aware of any ATSC/Digital tuners.. the developers did decide to implement a Video4Linux compatibility layer as video(4), so eventually future drivers will be written for such devices.

Sorry..
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Old 2nd April 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
There are 2 types of video capturing devices supported by OpenBSD, the legacy bktr(4) based chipsets.. and.. USB Video Class compliant devices, supported by uvideo(4).

The former is really the only real option for TV capture.. I haven't been able to find any UVC compliant TV tuners, most UVC devices are web cameras.

Still, I'm not aware of any ATSC/Digital tuners.. the developers did decide to implement a Video4Linux compatibility layer as video(4), so eventually future drivers will be written for such devices.

Sorry..
Thanks BSDfan666.

Aaaaaargh.

It looks like USB attached teevee devices won't work (that would have been my next question).

According to uvideo(4):
Quote:
If the uvideo device attaches successfully, it will attach the video(4)
driver to provide higher-level access.
As you say UVC is a webcam thing. :[

Do you have any advice?
There must be some way to do this.
Even Tivo requires a capture card (and it costs a lot). Anyway, I don't want to buy a box with a hard drive inside to watch teevee - I already have several. :]

Best wishes.
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Old 2nd April 2009
fbsduser fbsduser is offline
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Can you install linux (or other BSD flavor). That's about the only solution I came up with, at least you'll still ditch windows and you'll still be able to script your TV card with shell scripts.
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Old 2nd April 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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I wouldn't give up on uvideo(4), and as I said.. there is nothing preventing tuner devices, just.. nobody has created such a product yet.

Even bktr(4) is still useful, you're card will have either a coaxial or composite video input connector.. you could theoretically connect one of those new digital television boxes to one of these older analog cards, perhaps putting the receiver under your monitor.

Go check out a local auction site, they're useful for getting old devices.. or a local computer/electronics store may have some in a junk bin.
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Old 2nd April 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fbsduser View Post
Can you install linux (or other BSD flavor). That's about the only solution I came up with, at least you'll still ditch windows and you'll still be able to script your TV card with shell scripts.
The other BSD projects have fairly equal support I suspect, while it is unfortunate.. it isn't hopeless.. analog isn't the horrible thing that people think it is.
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Old 2nd April 2009
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Actually, bktr is ported from FreeBSD, and the FreeBSD driver hasn't been working on either for the last few years.

I've used a WinTV Haupage card a few years ago on FreeBSD, and it worked pretty well...
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Old 2nd April 2009
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Thanks guys.

I should probably get some box and feed it to a capture card.
Finding a supported card will be the hurdle.

Is there no interest in television among the code capable users or is it lack of documentation? Probably a bit of both.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
... analog isn't the horrible thing that people think it is.
I don't mind analog(ue).
I don't know what it's like in Canada. In Australia we are in a transition where the free to air stations are running dual stack.
One analogue channel and one digital.
Right now the analogue channels are the same old same old.
The digital channels on the other hand are running a lot of cool movies.
They must be getting a nice deal on royalties. :]
No doubt when we go all digital it will be the same old crud except with a different kind of fuzz.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carpetsmoker View Post
I've used a WinTV Haupage card a few years ago on FreeBSD, and it worked pretty well...
That was one of the brands I looked at. A little bit pricey.

Best wishes.
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