Brooktree 848/878/879 TV Capture Cards

L1011

Does anyone have any information on these cards? Suppliers, picture quality, connecters, that type of stuff? I need to use these cards, and pretty much no other ones, under BeOS, mainly just for watching/recording TV, but occasionally for other video capture stuff. However, I haven't seen any reviews of them, as they are pretty old cards

Inspector Gadget

Erm, one example I can think of is the Pinnacle PCTV Rave - it's based on the BT878 (mine has a Philips tuner module).

Connectors:

1 x RF-in (for as many of the damn things as I've seen and fitted, I'm not sure what they're actually called - that's embarrassing!)
1 x S-Video in
1 x Stereo Line out (3.5mm "headphone" style) for pass-through to sound card.

Picked it up for about £50 maybe three years ago - the same model was still on sale a month or two ago, so prob. Still is. Picture quite okay with strong signal, not impressed with tuner. (However, am living about 150m from a mobile mast so that might be relevant)

A number of the PCI-based Hauppage WinTV products also use these chips - maybe you should do a google?
Gadget

L1011

Thanks, I'll google, and then physically go into the shops and ask the techies... Do my usual, ask them to shove it in a system and let me put a live CD in

Inspector Gadget

Try to get a video source of some kind other than a pair of rabbit ears or similar - remember anywhere with a lot of CRT monitors will jeopardise TV reception, and if you're in a steel-framed "superstore"-type place, well, you're sunk without some other form of RF source... maybe a games console with an RF modulator?

Gadget

L1011

I have a TFT and use analogue cable with a very steady signal (very recent cables for a Chorus line). Shouldn't be too much of a problem

Inspector Gadget

Originally posted by MYOB
I have a TFT and use analogue cable with a very steady signal (very recent cables for a Chorus line). Shouldn't be too much of a problem

Actually, I meant if you were trying it in the shop, but good for you nonetheless... just keep the TFT's inverter away from the tuner.

Gadget

Stephen

Hauppuage WinTV cards use a BT878 as well.