Jate wrote: > I am thinking about buying a DVICO FusionHDTV5 Lite. I read that DVICO > recommends a video card with MPEG2 decoding acceleration to provide hardware > assistance with the HDTV stream decoding. Just curious, why the Lite model and not the Gold? I recommend the Gold model over the Lite model, any day. > I have also read that Linux video card drivers do not necessarily have > support for this hardware assistance. I have also read that binaries from > NVidia may have this support. I want to know if I would need to upgrade to a > brawnier processor in order to get this working. The Gold model is less CPU-intensive than the Lite model. The Lite model does NOT have the mpeg decoder that you are speaking of on-board, but the Gold model does. Actually, DViCO recommends ATI video boards for the DxVA acceleration... I like to stay away from NVidia, but that is just me... Be my guest and taint your kernel with proprietary binaries ;-) > If you are a FusionHDTV5 Linux pioneer, can you tell me your performance > experience? I have tried all three of these models (below) with my Pention 4 3.06 GHz HT processor... I have some slower machines here, but I havent bothered sticking any of these cards in there yet. They all perform very well in my machine under both Linux AND Windows, except that Linux DVB support for the Lite board isnt yet complete. Mac Michaels, the author of the frontend driver for all of these boards, has a slightly slower machine, and he has mentioned that his machine chokes a bit on the 1080i HDTV streams. I, on the other hand, can still compile a kernel in less than ten minutes while watching HBO in Hi-Def on the same machine without a hitch. FusionHDTV 5 LITE: I am currently working on the driver for this card. I have completed analog video support, and it is flawless. The (analog) driver for this board can be found in video4linux cvs, and probably will not hit the stable linux kernel until 2.6.14 (we missed the 2.6.13 deadline for this one). DVB support for FusionHDTV5 Lite is a work-in-progress. It is coming along, although I wouldn't expect full support right away. FusionHDTV5 GOLD: I was able to sneak analog support for this board into 2.6.13, but DVB support requires the newer version of the analog driver, found in video4linux cvs. Yes, I *did* say that DVB support requires an analog update, not a DVB update. I'd rather not explain this now -- it's a long story. Mac Michaels wrote the driver for the LGDT3303 frontend (used in all of these boards), and that driver will be included in 2.6.13, but disabled for FusionHDTV5 Gold. FusionHDTV 3 Gold-T: If you want a board that works in linux NOW (as of 2.6.13) then THIS is the board that you want to buy. Full analog AND dvb support have been implemented, and this code is already present in Linus' 2.6.13 stable tree. ---The three boards in my posession are the ones above this line. FusionHDTV 3 Gold-Q: Same story as the Gold-T ... Mac has this board. This is a slightly older model... You can probably get this for cheaper than the Gold-T model, and they're pretty much the same thing, although this one is harder to find nowadays. If you end up getting the FusionHDTV Lite anyway, then just cross your fingers and hope that I figure out this IRQ problem mentioned in an email I wrote last night. Regardless, it would be nice to have someone else to test my work on the dvb-bt8xx driver (for FusionHDTV5 Lite) besides just me alone. I hope this information is what you were looking for... If you have any other questions, please ask. -- Michael Krufky
