> > I'm wanting to buy a tv tuner for my computer, but before I do I > have a > couple of questions: > - Do internal tv cards or usb tv cards work best? > - What models/brands are well supported? > - Does Remote control support work? > - Do any allow for reccording of tv? > - Do any supported cards come with a built in fm radio tuner? If > so what > card should I get. > > Finally, once my card is working, what programs should I use to > controlthe radio and tv? I found gnomeradio which seems to work > with orca (I am > blind, so I need a program that is either gtk or command line based), > but does anyone know of a program that could control the tv? > (that isn't > qt based). > > Finally these cards will allow me to pick up standard tv like my > normaltv would won't it? > > Thanks for any info, > > Daniel >
Hi, There are a lot of TV tuner cards that work in Linux, either with native drivers or with drivers like ivtv. I have a Debian Etch box running MythTV with two TV tuner cards in it, a Hauppauge PVR-350 and a Hauppauge PVR-150, both of which use the ivtv drivers. The PVR-350 supports MPEG encoding and decoding, so it can be used for recording and playback. It also comes with a remote control and IR sensor which work very well using lirc, and it has an on-board FM tuner which I have not personally used, but I believe does work under Linux. The PVR-150 is only an encoder and can only be used for recording. These two cards are fairly old, though, and I'm sure there are better options out there now. I have read a lot of praise for Nvidia's TV tuner cards as well. MythTV may not fit your needs as it is based on Qt, and that's all I have personally used with these tuner cards so I'm afraid I can't make any recommendations about software, but I'm sure there are several available. The MythTV forums might be a good place to look, since tuner cards are a big topic of discussion, and a lot of people mention other TV and radio programs, too. I hope this helps. - Dave
