Hey, I've been wanted to build a HTPC for a long time now, but never had the cash to do so. So then I had the idea, why not use the old laptop I have. Its a Dell Inspiron 8200. I have a few questions regardgin this...

1) What would be a good tuner? Could I use more than one?
2) Can I mix and match a PCMCIA tuner and a USB tuner?
3) Right now it only has a 10GB HDD. Can I use an External USB HDD to record too?

Thanks for all you help.

1) Yes you can use more than 1 tuner, I have no experience with usb or pcmcia tuners so can't really recoment one. Try searching the tier1 forum.

2) Providing both tuners work in linux you should be able to mix and match

3) Yes you can, requires a little fiddling around.

Thanks for the speedy reply

I'll look there...

I don't know of any PCMCIA tuners, recent releases have support for the Hauppauge pvrusb2. There is also support for the MPEG4 tuners from Plextor.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

The AVerMedia AVerTV, and Lifeview LifeVideo to-go are PCMCIA cards...I haven't been able to findout if they use software or harware encoding...I also haven't found if anyone has used either of them with linux....I was kindof leaning towars the PCMCIA cards, since they are nealry half the price of the usb ones.

Keep in mind USB tuners will be infinitely more useful if/when you upgrade to a non-laptop based system.

Don't purchase ANYtuner until you know for certain they will work.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

@ryanpatterson
I agree it would be useful to get a usb tuner....that is why i was contemplating getting one of each...the pcmcia could be usefull for trips if i wanted to use a portable htpc and the usb could become part of mmy permanent setup

@cesman
yeah i know...i was just posting in the off chance that someone has used those tuners and just did not post about it.

http://www.mrgadget.com.au/catalog/aver ... p-437.html

Says its probably compatible with linux. I would try and find a howto or something before purchasing tho.

Yeah...I saw that review, but he also said he was nto able to get it to work under linux...

http://www.wlug.org.nz/TvTunerCards
If I'm reading that right, it lists "AVerMedia Cardbus TV/Radio" as being compatible (which I think is the same thing).....
"As mentioned above, the saal7134 driver is part of 2.6. However, xawtv didn't work, and didn't even try to access the /dev/video device! However, reading the documentation suggested using the "Xvideo" extension."
I'm assuming that the Avermedia would work the same way

I also found this:
http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.ph ... rdbus_E500
It is for the AVerMedia E500...from the looks of it, the cards are the same

If you really want a pcmcia one you could always find a store with a decent returns policy. In the UK at least, some places have a 30 day money back guarantee. If you can't get it to work in that time, take it back for a refund.

Don't those dell inspirons have ati graphics? You may have a battle getting tv out to work if that's what you intend to do.

mine has a 32MB GeForce4 440

Inspiron 8200's Don't have USB2 (480Mbit) if I'm not mistaken. So this may limit the possible USB tuners and definitely reduce the speed of an external harddisk. You could use a PCCard adapter for that, at the cost of a vacant slot for a tuner. Another option is finding a docking station. There should be a Dell one that has a PCI slot. This would allow you more tuners to choose from. Browsing Ebay might help here.

correct, they have USB1.1...I was planning on getting a USB2 PCMCIA card esspecially for the usb hdd...I'm going to continue looking into this and other options and I will let you guys know what I decide on doing and if it works...

however, i need to wait for my paycheck first