Video cards with composite video outputs

[Patrick Lidstone <patrick-lidstone@xxxxxxx>]

>On Fri, 04 Sep 1998 14:05:05 +0100, you wrote:
>
>>Or other suggestions for getting text out of my PC onto a TV
screen?
>>
>>Patrick
>This is something I'm very interestred in after getting a cheap
>(80ukp) TV/ Teletext card. After years of waiting for page 499 1 or 12
>to arrive, suddenly _every_ page is downloaded once and cached giving
>instant access! Unlike the WWW, this source of information is free
>when on-line which is a real plus.
>
>With an old PC next to the telly, I can probably get both instant
>access Teletext and play MP3 compressed audio files into the HiFi.
>Maplin do a IR remote with a mouse stick for 30ukp-ish which would be
>just the job.

I'm put off by the idea of having a PC by the telly because of the noise
made by the cooling fan!
I bought one of the Maplin IR remote controls for Win/95 this weekend,
funnily enough. It's Win/95 oriented of course, and comes with some quite
neat software; the hardware is ok - not too cheap'n'tacky. I spent half and
hour in a quick attempt to reverse engineer the serial protocol so that I
could use it with my Linux box, but didn't make a great deal of progress -
can't find a convincing word size/parity/baud rate combination - but at
least it does appear to be a conventional RS232 interface.

>What would be great would be a card with video in/ out, teletext and
>NICAM stereo. Happauge do somehing like this, but I don't think it'd
>drive a SCART TV- anyome tried this?

The Happauge card looks nice. I had a look at one recently and there was a
long spiel on the box about how the PC video card must support Windows
direct draw and a list of 4 or 5 cards with which it was approved to
operate. I guess getting the system to work with the SCART socket is
therefore down to the video card, not the happauge card. I would also
hazard a guess that direct draw is only relevant for real time display of
TV pics, and that teletext and video capture would work regardless (with
the right software drivers), writing to disk for subsequent manipulation.

For teletext only reception, I can recommend the Optimum OPT-III/S
standalone receiver. An external receiver with a serial interface, it's
trivial to drive -- but ridiculously expensive (UKP 250+ last time I
looked).

Patrick

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