+++ Laurence Abbott [05-12-12 15:42 +0000]: > > I have one of each of these two USB devices. The original winTV USB > device 'just worked' with vdr once I'd built the drivers for it. > Unfortunately, the bandwidth of USB 1 is so low that you can only use > one channel at a time. If I tried two recordings at the same time, all I > got was two recordings comprising random block pictures and lots of > nasty sounds! Even with a single channel it can struggle if the bit-rate > is high. I don't think there is a way of restricting a specific device > in vdr so that it will only ever record / stream a single channel. > > The newer USB 2 device (which I bought because the old one was so > crap!), needs firmware which may take a bit of fiddling to get it > loading with hotplug. I have got this device autoloading drivers and > firmware, and it works fine with things like 'tzap' and then > 'cat /dev/dvb/adaptor0/dvr0' into a file gives a perfect DVB stream. > However, so far I have not managed to get vdr to talk to the thing! It > recognises it as a DVB device but just doesn't get a DVB stream from it. > I'm not sure whether I have got a new version of it, or something like > that, but it's really annoying because it works fine, just not with vdr! > > :-( > > With a PCI Nova-T, I can quite happily record two streams (from same > multiplex) and watch another recording at the same time. > > I'm doing this on an Epia MII-12000 using software MPEG decoding which > means CPU usage is about 60-70%, which isn't really optimal. A dxr3 / > Hollywood+ card does give a really good output but some people have a > really hard time getting them going in a stable manner. I have a PCI > DVB-T card in the same box so I can't use my dxr3 in it. > > Hope some of that helps. That helps enormously. Thank you. Exactly the info I was looking for. It sounds like if I get the new USB device it is likely to be working 'fairly soon', although it may involve some fettling. It's tempting to go for the internal PCI card, but then I think I'd need a newer M-series EPIA board, like yours. I don't think mine will cope adequately. On the other hand the PCI boards are cheaper. Hmm, I wonder if a 2-slot riser will fit in my case... Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/
