TV cards, was Re: [plug] Mandrake 9.1

[Craig Ringer]

> Most TV cards (BT878) work fine with Linux. I think most here have the 
> Philips tuner, which does FM radio. But unlike most, yours does A2 stereo, 
> so I guess its a different tuner.
>    How are the drivers "barely usable"?

Its a  saa7134-based card, and doesn't use the bttv driver that most 
others do. The tuner etc is only just working proplerly with recent 
releases, and to get any sound from tv-in one must have /dev/radio0 open 
as well, requiring "radio" to be running. I still haven't got FM radio 
input.

The card also has one unexpectedly poor feature - it outputs sound via 
an external jack that must be plugged with a short lead into the sound 
card's line in socket. No system-visible DSP on the card.

So... I'm definitely looking for a better card if I can find one at a 
reasonable price.