To: Hauppauge, manufacturer of complete TV solutions To: Microtune and Dibcom, manufacturers of discrete elements used in the above solutions Copy: Linuxtv.org DVB mailing list, representing the linux users of above equipment, and the current developers of drivers I am a user of an Hauppauge WinTV-T-500 DVB-T dual tuner card. I am also a Linux user, trying to build a home-made Home Theater PC (HTPC). This letter is an individual effort, not reflecting the official policy of any other group or body of persons. Nevertheless, I hope that other users will make the effort of sending you equivalent requests. The WinTV-500-T is a very attractive piece of hardware with a feature set that matches many of the needs of HTPC builders, especially due to its dual-tuners capabilities. It has become very popular. Unfortunately, the current drivers available, developed by individual efforts, through reverse engineering or limited corporate efforts are still not fully working and are not completely usable, due primarily to disconnecting USB devices or tuning difficulties. Such problems could easily be corrected if efforts were made by the manufacturers, both of the card (Hauppauge) and of the components (Dibcom and Microtune). I understand that the Linux users of your equipment are still a fringe of your user base, but please keep in mind that this situation is rapidly evolving, with the growing success of the platform itself, partly driven by the growing popularity of custom HTPC applications. I am sure that a solid and vendor-supported set of drivers would only accelerate the success of Linux around the TV applications. Please, take a look at the situation and assign official and sufficient resources (humans, coders, development hardware and lab, multi-parties communications, time, money, salaries) in order to achieve complete and solid support for your hardware under the Linux kernel. These efforts wil allow you to grab a reward, the capture of a fast-growing market where you would be the first to grab an audience. The Linux users and developers community will certainly be eager to support these efforts and provide all the feedback you may need. Nicolas Will _______________________________________________ linux-dvb mailing list linux-dvb@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-dvb
