[pvrusb2] Functionality Questions

[Jeff Sadowski]

It comes with a 6VDC 1.66Amp DC power supply that
plugges into a standard 100-240VAC wall outlet.

--- Mathew Brown <timathewbrown at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Great.  Thanks for your very informative reply Mike.
>  Just one final question before I rush off to buy it
> that I would be very happy if you would kindly
> answer.
>   1) Does the unit draw power from the USB
> connection or through a seperate adapter?  If it's
> the later, is it universal (110/220)?
> 
> Thanks for your help and the work you've put in on
> this driver.
> 
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Mike Isely wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Mathew Brown wrote:
> > 
> > >  Hi,
> > 
> > >  I've been thinking of purchasing a Hauppage for
> quite some time now, 
> > > but since I just got a laptop, I was looking for
> something that can run 
> > > on both my desktop and my laptop machines,
> depending on which one I'm 
> > > using.  So I came across the WinTV-PVR-USB2 and
> in search for Linux 
> > > drivers for it, I came across your site.  I
> still haven't purchased it 
> > > and was wondering if you can help make my
> decision by answering the 
> > > following questions:
> > 
> > >  a) how would you compare the driver for the
> WinTV-PVR-USB2 with that 
> > > for something like the Hauppage PVR350 in terms
> of features / maturity?
> > 
> > The WinTV-PVR-USB2 device is roughly comparable to
> a PVR-250 or a 
> > PVR-150, with the difference being of course that
> the WinTV-PVR-USB2 is USB 
> > hosted while the others are PCI.  The PVR-350 adds
> a video output with 
> > hardware mpeg decoder compared to the PVR-250 and
> PVR-150.
> > 
> > In terms of maturity, the ivtv driver is far
> larger and more mature.  It's 
> > been around a lot longer and has to support a
> larger variety of devices 
> > (the PVR-350 in particular involves additional
> effort on the driver's 
> > behalf).  I've only been maintaining the pvrusb2
> driver for about the 
> > past year.  I was not the original author; I took
> it over when the original 
> > author disappeared.  The pvrusb2 driver is quite
> stable.  There are still 
> > missing features, but there's certainly enough to
> make a good PVR system 
> > with it when combined with, say, MythTV.
> > 
> > There is some complexity in setting up the driver,
> being that it's 
> > out-of-tree, requires a number of support modules,
> and you have to 
> > extract and install a bunch of firmware.  The same
> is true of the ivtv driver. 
> > However the situation is improving with time.  In
> both cases, the 
> > needed support modules are all in the kernel now,
> and in the pvrusb2 case it 
> > appears that the driver itself will be in the
> kernel starting with 
> > 2.6.18. 
> > The ivtv driver will probably appear in the kernel
> in the 2.6.19 
> > timeframe.
> > 
> > 
> > >  b) What exactly is the difference between the
> "WINTV-USB2" 
> > >
>
(http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_usb2.html)
> and the 
> > > WINTV-PVR-USB2 
> > >
>
(http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html)?
>  I get the 
> > > feeling that they are both basically the same
> with the USB2 being 
> > > slightly less expensive.
> > 
> > The biggest similarity is the name; beyond that
> the two devices are 
> > considerably different.  The "non-PVR" device does
> not include a 
> > hardware mpeg encoder.  It is essentially a dumb
> frame buffer capture device 
> > conencted by USB.  Its internal architecture is
> considerably different 
> > (beyond just not having the mpeg encoder).
> > 
> > If you are just interested in watching TV, then
> the non-PVR device might 
> > be the better choice - no need for an mpeg decoder
> anywhere in the 
> > path.  On the other hand if you want to set up a
> PVR type of arrangement where 
> > you actually want to store the video somewhere,
> then you need to 
> > compress the video somewhere.  In that case you're
> far better off with a device 
> > that can do mpeg encoding in hardware, i.e. use
> the "PVR" version of 
> > the device.
> > 
> > 
> > >  c) Is it fully integrated with V4L so I can do
> thing such as set a 
> > > program to record at a given time, etc.
> > 
> > The pvrusb2 driver is V4L compatible to the extent
> that any 
> > mpeg2-native device can be V4L compatible.  This
> means that any V4L app
> > which can decode mpeg2 data (e.g. MythTV, xawtv
> 4.x) should be able
> > to work with this device.  I suggest you look at
> the usage page on 
> > on the web site where you'll see specific
> information about various 
> > apps that can work.
> > 
> > Questions regarding setting a recording time etc
> are not a driver 
> > issue. 
> > That is a feature of the app, like MythTV.
> > 
> >    -Mike
> > 
> > -- 
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> 
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