# Lack of TV Viewer capabilities for India in Linux



## sganesh (Nov 25, 2007)

Hello Team,

We've almost tired all Linux Operating Systems (Redhat, Suse,Madriva, ubuntu) for watching TV. I've a PlayTV Pro2 Internal TV Card, which is detected by Linux OS, but the softwares doesn't have an option of choosing India as the country, so we are unable to watch TV in linux. Has anyone tired this before? any luck?
Please assist.

Thanks & regards
Ganesh


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## praka123 (Nov 25, 2007)

I dont have any experiance with tv tuner cards in linux.but still Mythtv etc is there which may be helpful.choose latest Ubuntu Gutsy for this.
*wiki.linuxhelp.net/index.php/TV_Tuner#TV_Card
Description: A high quality television application
 tvtime is a high quality television application for use with video
 capture cards.  tvtime processes the input from a capture card and
 displays it on a computer monitor or projector.  Unlike other
 television applications, tvtime focuses on high visual quality making
 it ideal for videophiles.

 tvtime supports:
  * Deinterlaced output at a full interlaced rate of 59.94 frames per
    second for NTSC source, or 50 frames per second for PAL sources.
    This gives smoothness of motion and high visual quality.
  * Multiple deinterlacing algoritms for finding the optimal mode for
    your video content and available processor speed.
  * 16:9 aspect ratio mode for the highest available resolution when
    processing input from an external DVD player or digital satellite
    receiver.
  * A super-slick on-screen-display for the complete television
    experience, with a featureful menu system.
  * 2-3 Pulldown detection for optimal quality viewing of film content
    from NTSC sources.
 .
 You can find more information at *tvtime.net/


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## gary4gar (Nov 25, 2007)

sganesh said:
			
		

> Hello Team,
> 
> We've almost tired all Linux Operating Systems (Redhat, Suse,Madriva, ubuntu) for watching TV. I've a PlayTV Pro2 Internal TV Card, which is detected by Linux OS, but the softwares doesn't have an option of choosing India as the country, so we are unable to watch TV in linux. Has anyone tired this before? any luck?
> Please assist.
> ...


This card is reported be working on linux, i myself has made it work on my friends computer.

Prolink Pixelview PlayTV Pro 2 on Linux


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## sganesh (Nov 27, 2007)

Thanks All !

For your Inputs.. But the real concern is not the hardware.. nor linux...
All TV viewer S/Ws in linux doesn't have an option for choosing India as country while selecting for scanning frequencies ( for e.g., mplayer, xawtv etc.,). We tried the default honestech TVR application ( which runs in windows ) using WINE, but no luck. Please help.

Thanks & regards
Ganesh


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## FilledVoid (Nov 27, 2007)

> We tried the default honestech TVR application ( which runs in windows ) using WINE, but no luck. Please help.



This wont work at all so youre out of luck with that. As gary said this card does work so you should be able to get the card number and tuner number from linuxtv.org. BY any chance is this using the Saa713x chipset? As for scanning frequencies regardless of the country you select in tvtime If your program does detect a signal my experience was that it automatically brought in every single channel regardless.


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## praka123 (Nov 28, 2007)

@exx:i am soon gonna buy a TV tuner card after researching which card is best supported in Linux.BTW,how do u share between TV and PC?in my case i have just a cable plugged into *TV*.what shud i do to get the cable to my room which is a lil far?does there any splitter/connector that we need to use?


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## Hitboxx (Nov 28, 2007)

Yes no TV option for Indian frequency, which I basically think is because of non-contribution from the Indian community for the development of the said program, which is sad.

However, I watch TV regularly on my Linux using Tvtime application and guess what, during the frequency selection mode I select France, lolz  [..it works fine..]

Just install from your distro's repo.


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## gary4gar (Nov 28, 2007)

using scantv we can Scan the entire frequency range for channels.
and then export the list.
is this too much hard??



			
				praka123 said:
			
		

> @exx:i am soon gonna buy a TV tuner card after researching which card is best supported in Linux.BTW,how do u share between TV and PC?in my case i have just a cable plugged into *TV*.what shud i do to get the cable to my room which is a lil far?does there any splitter/connector that we need to use?


yes ideally there should be splitter/connector used but you can join the wire without it too like i had done in the past. for splitter ask your cable oparator only, he usaally charge some extra amount every  month for more than one connection in the house.


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## FilledVoid (Nov 28, 2007)

> @exx:i am soon gonna buy a TV tuner card after researching which card is best supported in Linux.



You would be better off getting one of the Pixelview Tv Tuner cards since I hear that they use the bt878 modules to get themselves running. Pinnacle can be configured if you were to work a bit. My recommendation is Pixelview . 



> BTW,how do u share between TV and PC?in my case i have just a cable plugged into TV.what shud i do to get the cable to my room which is a lil far?does there any splitter/connector that we need to use?



I have sort of a divider made out of wood in the main hall so no one notices the wire going through the top of the divider  . Your idea is correct yo would use a splitter to divide the line and then route one of them to your room.  There is no specificied splitter / connector required. Please note that if the connection made isnt upto mark then you will notice a small degradation in picture, which is why I would recommend letting the Cable Tv Providers to do the same.


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## ray|raven (Nov 28, 2007)

See this:
*linuxindia.net/articles/tvcard.html
It says that u can use europe-west cos india isnt in the list.

Offtopic:


			
				sganesh said:
			
		

> Hello Team,



Hello team?
What are you a coach or a project manager 

Regards,
ray


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## praka123 (Nov 28, 2007)

thx rayravanan.BTW,i found another good page reg:
*www.wlug.org.nz/TvTunerCards

and guys please quote some famous tuner card brands in India


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## ray|raven (Nov 28, 2007)

I found this link on the link u posted:
*linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Looks pretty fine.

Oh n btw,u might wanna correct my name 

Regards,
ray


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## praka123 (Nov 28, 2007)

and it seems(see,am dumb in this tuner/gfx card thingies!) there is internal and external tuner cards.internal may be win-tuners-trouble to get it work in Linux.
also there is some analogue/digital output  i think i will have to choose digital one  .


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## ray|raven (Nov 28, 2007)

Internal tuners work through the CPU.They can be used inside the OS.

External tuners connect directly to the Monitor removing software and compatiblity out of the equation,
But the downside is u cant record tv.
I myself have a tech-com external one and its pretty good for casual viewing.

Regards,
ray


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## praka123 (Nov 28, 2007)

^so for recording,we need internal tuner.and what is this digital/analog tuner


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## ray|raven (Nov 28, 2007)

Analog tuners are for analog tv and digital tuners for digital tv.
And you can get some cards with both tuners on it.

Analog TV is the what we get from local cable wala.
Digital TV is what we get from the set-top boxes and dish'es i think.

Check here:
*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_tuner_card

Regards,
ray


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## praka123 (Nov 28, 2007)

I am thinking of buying some cheap internal tuner card may be intex one.this is after reading:
*pcquest.ciol.com/content/linux/2007/107031007.asp
^very informative.sry if it is linked to any rival mag.but the article is really informative.


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## FilledVoid (Nov 28, 2007)

> ^so for recording,we need internal tuner.and what is this digital/analog tuner



Not exactly True. There are mainly Two kinds of Tv Tuners.
1. Internal
2. External 

The external ones can be further classified into 2 groups. One that works with the use of your CPU and ones that don't. The ones that don't just use your monitor so basically you don't need your CPU to watch TV since all you need to do is power on your monitor.. The other external ones are like the USB Tv Tuners which are available and if I recall correctly that they can record programs. The USB ones are kind of hard to configure and theres only a few supported ones. 

Internal ones allow you to record and there should be no problem.  Phillips Saa713x (x = random number) is usually found to be kind of hard to configure. However there are a list of cards which will work. If I recall correctly Pinnacle uses this chipset and can be configured. From my knowledge Pixelview is the easiest to configure (you might want to check about this a bit though) this card uses the bt878 modules and I even recall that someone said it was Plug and Play but that was in Mandriva 2008. With minor adjustments you should be able to get it to run in Ubuntu.


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