Mini-PCIe HDTV tuner card options?

Hey there. Long time lurker, first time poster.

So, I went and got an Asus G2S-B1 (the 7700 Meron / 200G Hitachi version ) while waiting for the quad Clevos to arrive and then stabilize, figure I'll have this a year or so. It's stock but for stripping the Hynix 1G PC5300 modules in favor of OCZ 2G PC5400s... it's being used as a portable desktop mostly for 3D work under x86_64 linux.

Anyway - under the hood it looks like it's got three mini-PCIe slots. Two are populated, a 4965AGN and a 1 Gig Turbo Memory module... I'm pretty sure the middle unpopulated slot is for either another network module or a TV tuner card. There's an unconnected antenna wire, or at least that's what it looks like. Perhaps it's a connector for the CIR module on the side?

I'm trying to figure out what mini-PCIe HD TV tuner cards I can stick in it. Good linux support is the most important thing for me. I'm assuming there's not more than a few HDTV mini-PCIe tuner cards out there, but for all I know there's 20. Or only one, an Asus specific solution. I don't mind doing the research for what works under linux myself, but searching vip.asus.com and blindly Googling is not helping.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

To date I have not seen a single mini-PCIe HDTV tuner. How would you route an antenna or other video source to the card? Or are you talking about a expresscard external card for the notebook?

 

There's an oval pop-off cover on the side where this slot is. I assume this is to provide access to allow hooking up cables/antenna to a tv tuner or phone/network cables to a modem or network card.

There are no HD mini-PCIe? Really? USB is so sketchy when passing constant, high-bandwidth data. I can't imagine being able to run 1920x1080 60fps on overlay. (is there even a way to pass USB video as overlay to an internal GeForce?? It would show as windowed I would think.)

Seems strange. What is the extra mini-PCIe for, then?

Well, what about expresscard solutions? The main reason I went with the Asus is that it's got a external multiplexed SATAe port built-in, so I didn't have to permanently occupy the expresscard slot with a controller for my array...

 

Well if there is a slot designed for it in the notebook, the manufacturer might have proprietary card for that purpose. Otherwise I have never seen one of the cards pictured or in person yet

 

HDTV is only 20Mbps. That's about 1/5 the bandwidth of 10/100 Ethernet. USB should handle it fine.

 

I've had nothing but trouble from the two attempts at USB 2.0 video I've tried; theoretical limits vs real-world throughput is one thing, but I assume it's the way USB shares clock, even non-HD video pauses occasionally, or causes the mouse to stutter, etc. (On an Ath64 3800+ running nothing else.)

I want to use it as an HD DVR with MythTV... and apparently people do use USB HD dongles fine. I see the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950 suggested, so if I can't find out if Asus makes/rebrands one, I guess that's the route I'll go.

Hmm, wonder what other goodies I can stuff in that remaining mini-PCIe slot? Something useless and battery stealing, preferably.

edit: upon further investigation, it's really not possible. Even a T7700 has trouble playing a USB-provided 1080i signal, eating up 93% CPU utilization. The whole point is to be able to watch TV while a render is sucking up all the clock, it's got to be on-board processed video... these USB dongles are software decoding only toys. But things like the Plextor ConvertX while being hardware compression still would require an HDTV tuner! It's a monster freakin' laptop already! I'm not carrying around a cable box / HD antenna, and firewire/usb/expressscard capture device! That's *expletive* insane.

Hmm. Maybe there is no solution. Sucks when that happens.

 

Does your video card support XvMC? You can pretty much forget about HD if it doesn't.

 

Well, I found out what that 3rd mini-PCIe is for... a HSDPA card. So if I want to have the monthly wireless bill of a rock star, I can get online from anywhere. That's what the antenna wire is for. So far, no one seems to be able to make any other mini-PCIe type things operate, and we're talking hardcore types. (like soldering irons and razor knives for case cutting "hardcore".)

re: XvMC, yea it's an nVidia 8 series, it will offload the MPEG-2 mo comp and iDCT to the GPU, using the closed-source binary drivers. (but just MPEG-2)

Hey it's only $100 I'll give it a shot. (from a retailer with a liberal return policy, natch.)

 

I guess the next question is, where can I get a few sets of the Asus drive rails with the little "quick pull" handle? Direct? A systems builder/reseller? Swapping drives on this beast is quite easy, luckily, because I don't think passing 20MB/sec video in while simultaneously writing said 20MB/sec out to a USB drive is gonna cut it... rolling the mouse would probably make it stutter.

Edit: No wait, nevermind. I'll get a dual Firewire/USB enclosure. That way, if I'm at home and the array is hooked up to the eSATA port, I won't have to offline the drives just to record tele.

 

does the 8600 gt support that?


i still think this is the best tv turner other than the on air gt
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Pinn...92610/catOid/-13043/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

 

All nVidia cards GF4 and beyond support XvMC.

 

How about this?

http://www.pcnextday.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=1513-9210