- Joined
- Apr 6, 2002
I just thought i'd write a quick post about the fun I had last week with my ATI HDTV Wonder (hdtv tuner card). All of the documentation from ATI specifically states that the card's digital tv tuner can only recieve OTA ATSC signals, which for those not in the know means that you have to use an antenna to grab channels. I tried hooking up my cable to the DTV port when I had the card installed in windows and I got absolutely no picture. So I figured they had different tuners for OTA and Cable (QAM) digital signals.
Now, I have been playing around with Linux for almost a year now, and I have had the card set up and working with OTA signals. The last install I did, however, I never got the card working because OTA was always a hassle for me to use. Last week, I was browsing the MythTV wiki and I noticed that it said that the ATI HDTV Wonder would infact view QAM streams. Of course some channels are encrypted, but even if I could only get the local channels, that would be better than the quality of picture I get off the antenna.
So I went to work getting the tuner up and running, and sure enough, I can view all of the local channels (NBC, ABC, CBS) as well as a handfull of others. The local channels come in HD, and all the rest just come in as regular digital channels, but the quality is great.
The main reason I am writing this is I wanted to point out how a product that says it only runs in Windows XP actually performs better in Linux.
(if I had to guess, I'd say it's because of the nxt200x firmware that gets loaded on the card when used in Linux, where as the standard firmware from ATI is locked down)
Now, I have been playing around with Linux for almost a year now, and I have had the card set up and working with OTA signals. The last install I did, however, I never got the card working because OTA was always a hassle for me to use. Last week, I was browsing the MythTV wiki and I noticed that it said that the ATI HDTV Wonder would infact view QAM streams. Of course some channels are encrypted, but even if I could only get the local channels, that would be better than the quality of picture I get off the antenna.
So I went to work getting the tuner up and running, and sure enough, I can view all of the local channels (NBC, ABC, CBS) as well as a handfull of others. The local channels come in HD, and all the rest just come in as regular digital channels, but the quality is great.
The main reason I am writing this is I wanted to point out how a product that says it only runs in Windows XP actually performs better in Linux.
(if I had to guess, I'd say it's because of the nxt200x firmware that gets loaded on the card when used in Linux, where as the standard firmware from ATI is locked down)
