video capture cards for FreeBSD laptop

[Juergen Lock]

On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 06:47:52PM +0200, Juergen Lock wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 04:16:04PM +0200, Lars Engels wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 01:41:41PM +0200, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > I've Google'd around a bit but I don't see any real solution. My wife
> > > has a FreeBSD laptop with 8-REL and wants to watch TV from time to time.
> > > Any solution via USB or PCMCIA cards? Or even a small network box which
> > > could be connected via LAN/WLAN by mplayer...
> > > 
> > > Thanks in advance
> > 
> > Hi Matthias,
> > 
> > the "Freecom DVB-T USB Stick" works nicely with webcamd + vlc.
> 
> That one no longer seems to be sold tho, or only at pretty high prices...
> If I look at e.g.
> 
> 	http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=vidext&xf=800_USB
> 
> I find usb dvb-t tuners for as cheap as 9 eur tho I don't know which
> of those work with webcamd, but if you want to experiment and maybe use
> the 14-day return policy if one doesn't work...  (or look up an usb tuner
> on sites like
> 
> 	http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Device_Information
> 
> , maybe ask on freenode irc #linuxtv, find out which linux driver it
> uses and check
> 
> 	/usr/ports/multimedia/webcamd/work/webcamd-0.1.12/Makefile
> 
> after `make extract' in /usr/ports/multimedia/webcamd to see if
> webcamd builds that driver, and hope it works too...)  But how ever
> you try, don't forget to post your findings here!
> 
>  If you want hdtv in Germany you'll need dvb-s2 (if you have a
> satellite dish) or dvb-c (if you have cable, but remember often
> otherwise fta `private' channels are crypted on cable unless you
> stick to analog transmissions which I don't know for how much longer
> they'll be around and also you won't get hdtv that way), and dvb-c
> and dvb-s(2) tuners are more expensive than dvb-t ones tho the picture
> quality (bandwidth) also often is better than with dvb-t.  Oh and
> the hdtv versions of the german `private' channels are `paytv'
> everywhere (i.e. crypted), even on satellite, the only fta hdtv
> chanels on Astra 19.2E atm are Das Erste, ZDF, arte, Anixe and
> Servus TV.  (And EinsFestival HD but that one only plays test loops
> most of the time.)
> 
>  I use a PCTV 452e Sat HDTV Pro USB dvb-s2 tuner which works pretty well
> now with vdr (as well as kaffeine, mplayer, and szap-s2 with most any
> player, only vlc's builtin dvb support seems to be broken for this tuner
> but that I can live with.)
> 
>  If you want full pvr functionality (epg, timers, recordings,
> client/server network playback/streaming/webinterface, osd, teletext,
> multiple tuners...  only using a remote may still be a problem) you
> can try mythtv from ports or my preliminary vdr ports (which still
> have loose ends but are very much functional at least for me tho
> a lot of `less important' plugins aren't ported yet, some manual
> tweaking may still be required and I don't know if anyone has tested
> xineliboutput's vdpau support on FreeBSD yet), see here:
> 
> 	http://people.freebsd.org/~nox/dvb/
> 
> and the threads linked from there like:
> 
> 	http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-multimedia/2010-June/011154.html
> 
> (most Linux users I know prefer vdr over mythtv. :)
> 
> > Jun 23 16:13:25  root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x14aa product 0x0225 bus uhub7
> > Jun 23 16:13:25  kernel: ugen7.2: <vendor 0x14aa> at usbus7
> > 
> > There should also be some other Sticks with the same chip.
> > 
> > The only issue I have is that it is also recognized as a ukbd, so I had
> > to remove the ukbd entries in /etc/devd.conf.
> 
>  That's probably the remote...  (which other usb tuners often have extra
> code for in their drivers, but webcamd doesn't support those parts yet
> so you'd need to play with an extra receiver and lirc most likely if
> you want to use the remote.)
> 
>  Oh and if any u.s. people are still reading, vdr seems to support atsc
> now too, tho I dunno if anyone tried that with webcamd yet.

Oh and btw I was watching the soccer worldcup in 720p hd today using vdr
and xine on FreeBSD, Germany won 4-1 against England...

 :),
	Juergen