video capture cards for FreeBSD laptop

[Lars Engels]

Quoting Juergen Lock <nox at jelal.kn-bremen.de>:

> 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.)

Yes, probably the remote. It used to be recognized as a uhid device.  
raaf has written a little tool to use the remote:
http://raaf.atspace.org/dvbusb/ Scroll down to "dvbremote" there.
Perhaps it is also usable with other DVB-T devices.


>>  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...


Yeah, I watched it in a club and we had a lot of fun! :)
In the evening I watched Argentina vs. Mexico in the backyard using my  
DVB-T device.
Thanks to the vuvuzelas I found out, that there seems to be a buffer  
problem in the driver. Every n seconds the sound stops for a short  
time and theres a little distortion in the picture.

Hans: Do you know where I could look in the code? The device can be  
found here:
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-T_USB_Devices#WideView.2FYakumo.2FHama.2FTyphoon.2FYuan_Boxes_and_Pens  (Freecom DVB-T USB Stick (25451  
rev3))
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