Mailing List Archive

At 06:59 6-6-2003, you wrote:
>Is anyone using WinTV-Theater? does it work under bttv or any of the
>video capture drivers?

Well, I am using the wintv theater and did not get any problems in
installing it, but I do not remember how I managed to do it (I am using
Mandrake 9.1, and that already supports this card(?), but I suppose it was
bttv)

>
>i can't seem to find much data about it...but, it seems to be one of the
>very few cards I can find with surround sound... (or maybe not--what is
>DBX stereo... isn't this still just two channel?)... its the same price as
>the PVR 250 but is software based....

Yes it does support surround sound, but no, you can't use it with mythtv
(at least, not the surround part) This is because the audio is available
only via external plugs, which should be attached to the line in of your
sound card. Since this is only a stereo channel, you cannot capture the
surround channels. In principle you could try to attached the surround
channels to another audio card and capture them as well, but this is not
possible in mythtv (It is only based on stereo and one audio input, AFAIK)
Since the PVR250 is hardware based, I suppose it just sends a stream to
mythtv including video,audio and surround data. So this should work, but
please ask someone who has a PVR250 :-)

Hope this helps,

Marc

>
>-dane
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

> Since the PVR250 is hardware based, I suppose it just sends a stream to
> mythtv including video,audio and surround data. So this should work, but
> please ask someone who has a PVR250 :-)

wait a sec... the PVR 250 can do surround sound??? can anyone confirm this?
the hauppauge site lists it as dbx stereo, which afaik know is just a
glorified way of saying "stereo" :P (they have a sep category for dolby
surround in their chart)

-dane

Just to avoid confusion: because it was named in the same mail as the
wintv-theater about surround sound, I just assumed that it did have
surround sound capabilities, but I do not have such a device, so I really
don't know.... (what I should have said in my mail was: If the PVR250
supports surround sound, Mythtv MIGHT be able to support it...., this in
contrast to the winTV theater: It is capable of surround sound, but MythTV
is designed such that it does not support this.)

At 17:02 6-6-2003, you wrote:
> > Since the PVR250 is hardware based, I suppose it just sends a stream to
> > mythtv including video,audio and surround data. So this should work, but
> > please ask someone who has a PVR250 :-)
>
>wait a sec... the PVR 250 can do surround sound??? can anyone confirm this?
>the hauppauge site lists it as dbx stereo, which afaik know is just a
>glorified way of saying "stereo" :P (they have a sep category for dolby
>surround in their chart)
>
>-dane
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

On Friday 06 June 2003 11:20 am, Marc Kessels wrote:
> Just to avoid confusion: because it was named in the same mail as the
> wintv-theater about surround sound, I just assumed that it did have
> surround sound capabilities, but I do not have such a device, so I really
> don't know.... (what I should have said in my mail was: If the PVR250
> supports surround sound, Mythtv MIGHT be able to support it...., this in
> contrast to the winTV theater: It is capable of surround sound, but MythTV
> is designed such that it does not support this.)

There's no need to support surround sound in mythtv. That's what an external
receiver is for. Standard Dolby Surround (ie, prologic), is just encoded as
a stereo signal.

Isaac

On Friday 06 June 2003 11:02 am, Dane Kantner wrote:
> > Since the PVR250 is hardware based, I suppose it just sends a stream to
> > mythtv including video,audio and surround data. So this should work, but
> > please ask someone who has a PVR250 :-)
>
> wait a sec... the PVR 250 can do surround sound??? can anyone confirm this?
> the hauppauge site lists it as dbx stereo, which afaik know is just a
> glorified way of saying "stereo" :P (they have a sep category for dolby
> surround in their chart)

It doesn't need to. Decoding the surround information out of the stereo audio
would be up to whatever you're piping the audio to -- ie, a receiver.

Isaac

> There's no need to support surround sound in mythtv. That's what an
external
> receiver is for. Standard Dolby Surround (ie, prologic), is just encoded
as
> a stereo signal.

so, i can just buy any card that is sold as "dbx stereo" ...have the sound
go out my sound card as 2 channel audio to my receiver and the receiver will
do the rest? (i guess this does make sense--my TV for instance outputs 2
channel stereo to the receiver--i think?)

i'm thinking of getting the win TV radio card...

-dane

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Dane Kantner
> Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 12:33 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] WinTV-Theater ?
>
>
> > There's no need to support surround sound in mythtv. That's what an
> external
> > receiver is for. Standard Dolby Surround (ie, prologic), is
> just encoded
> as
> > a stereo signal.
>
> so, i can just buy any card that is sold as "dbx stereo" ...have the sound
> go out my sound card as 2 channel audio to my receiver and the
> receiver will
> do the rest? (i guess this does make sense--my TV for instance outputs 2
> channel stereo to the receiver--i think?)
>
> i'm thinking of getting the win TV radio card...
>
> -dane

Keep in mind that we're talking 'prologic' type surround, not 5.1 Surround.
AFAIK, you can't get 5.1 surround from a standard TV signal anyway (but I
know not whereof I speak...)

-JAC

Joseph A. Caputo wrote:

>Keep in mind that we're talking 'prologic' type surround, not 5.1 Surround.
>
>
right. The main feature of "Dolby Surround" (prologic) is that it's
encoded in stereo signals which are backwards compatible both to
transfer- as well as playing-equipment. You can play it as stereo to get
stereo, you can transfer it over normal stereo paths, yet if you play it
using a dolby surround decoder, you get surround. Quite a bad quality,
though.

IIRC, the WinTV Theater has a Dolby decoder built-in, so you can connect
4 active speakers (those with built-in amp) and don't need any other
decoder, receiver or amp. Not sure about the details, though.
Similarily, I think some of the newer soundcards also have a dolby
surround decoder built-in to drive 4 connected active speakers from a
(dolby surround-supporting) stereo signal. that would work with mythtv,
assuming the linux drivers support that.

>AFAIK, you can't get 5.1 surround from a standard TV signal anyway (but I
>know not whereof I speak...)
>
That's correct, analog TV has no way to transport that information.

DVB does support Dolby Digital (AC3) in addition to normal stereo (and
dolby surround with that). That's just an additional PID (in addition to
the video PID and stereo/dolby surround audio PID) in the MPEG stream.
(I am not 100% correct with the terminology to make it easier.) My
MythTV DVB code should support AC3 at recording time, but the MythTV
player can't do anything with it yet, it's ignored. it should be
playable with other apps, though, e.g. mplayer or xine or vlc.

Ben

Dane Kantner wrote:
> Is anyone using WinTV-Theater? does it work under bttv or any of the
> video capture drivers?
>
> i can't seem to find much data about it...but, it seems to be one of the
> very few cards I can find with surround sound... (or maybe not--what is
> DBX stereo... isn't this still just two channel?)... its the same price
> as the PVR 250 but is software based....

Just for a data point in all this, I use a $30 bttv card
that does not have an onboard DSP (no btaudio) then plug it
into a $30 SoundBlaster Live! and get prologic surround. This
works from the analog line out of the sound card to the
receiver or the digital out of the sound card to the receiver.

-- bjm

Joseph A. Caputo wrote:

>Keep in mind that we're talking 'prologic' type surround, not 5.1 Surround.
>AFAIK, you can't get 5.1 surround from a standard TV signal anyway (but I
>know not whereof I speak...)
>
>-JAC
>
>
My Echostar DSS reciever has a Dolby Digital output that works on some
channels with some programs,
but I don't know how you'd capture this information in Mythtv, or play
it back properly with the sound card.