adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
On Mon, Dec 27, 2004 at 03:30:07PM +0000, Barry Samuels wrote:
CPUs ). I'm using a 2.4 kernel and don't propose moving to 2.6 in the near future.
You may want to move to 2.6, it has been around for over a year now and will make much of what you propose to do much easier.
I agree with this advice. I did get my Nova-T working with the 2.4 kernel but it was a pain and with 2.6 it just worked (once I'd selected the correct options to compile into my kernel).
[...]
What Linux software is available/needed? I don't understand a lot of the terminology and don't know what to search for. I run Debian Sarge/ Testing.
Have a look at the output of apt-cache search dvb you will need the package "dvb-utils" you will also probably end up swearing lots when trying to get the card tuned to all of the freeview channels (this is why I would like to know where you are, as I have a config file suitable for the Tacolneston transmitter)
Also are you planning to perhaps use the machine as a digital video recorder? If so you want to take a look at both mythtv and vdr (you will want to take a look at these anyhow) or do you mean that you only want to record video from Freeview to put onto DVD discs?
I'd also suggest you google for kaxtv, it allows you to watch and record DVB channels and it's a lot simpiler than VDR or MythTV to get working. It isn't a full blown PVR program though so if you do want to do scheduled recordings and time shifting go for one of the others (I use MythTV).
How easy/difficult is it to create DVD discs with, for example, 2 hours of recording? What about file sizes greater than 2 GB?
I have never tried to put a Freeview stream onto a DVD for playback in a DVD player, it isn't as easy as just burning the files to the DVD as data AIUI. Google will turn up some hits for what you want I'm pretty certain of this.
I've done it and it seemed to work fine in my DVD player although a friend's Windows PC complained about the format beeing too high a bitrate. I can't find any of the links to instructions at the moment but google should definately bring up something. I think I used GOPChop to split up the stream and dvdauthor to write the dvds. If you end up using MythTV there is a program that'll take a MythTV recording and reformat it for you to DVD, SVCD, MPEG4 etc. called nuvexport.
HTH,
JD