[geeks] HDTV tuner cards?

[Jeremy Grosser]

I use a pcHDTV HD-5500 card under Gentoo Linux with MythTV. The card  
costs $129 from pchdtv.com. This card does not work with Windows  
(There is an experimental Windows driver available, but there are no  
guarantees).

It works great once you've played a game of 'find the right kernel  
driver'. I spent two days messing with it before I managed to get the  
patched version of the kernel module working. If you attempt to setup  
this card, just be sure to use the kernel module on the CD or off  
their website, rather than the one in the kernel tree. Their version  
is patched to work with the HD-5500 cards.

Aside from the initial setup problems, I've had no problems with this  
card. There may be cheaper cards available, but I haven't had any  
experience with them.

If you're looking for a card to use with Windows, make sure that it  
has the Microsoft stamp for compatibility with Windows Media Center  
Edition. There are only a few cards on the market that support MCE  
and even fewer that can do HDTV as well.

It is also worth noting that there is very little chance of CableCard  
support ever happening under linux because of licensing issues. While  
CableCard devices are still fairly rare, you might want to have the  
ability to use it in the future.

Hope this helps.

--
Jeremy Grosser
http://www.csh.rit.edu/~synack/