I have a BUD (big ugly dish) and am interested in recording the mpeg 4:2:2 streams off digital channels. I know hardware 4:2:2 decoders are expensive as hell (think $5-10k range) but I'm thinking a software solution. What are these DVB cards, how would they connect to my satellite reciever or dish (directly?), can they get 4:2:2 MPEG, and is the SkyStar 2 an all right DVB? Any other cards?

DVB cards are Digital Video Broadcast cards, the DVB card for Satellite is called DVB-S and there also cards for cables and terestial digital signals.


These articles can be useful yo you:
http://www.planetsky.com/files/Penta.pdf
http://www.pchardware.ro/Reviews/review.php?id=38&p=3


It depends on the card.
The Pinnacle Sat card supports 4:2:2 for example.

And SkyStar 2 is not too bad as a DVB card..howewer I can say Pinnacle is better from my opinion.

What makes it better?

A DVB-x stream is always plain, simple MPEG2 video. Of course, you can decode that into 4:2:2 if you wish, but this is a matter of your MPEG2 decoder, not of your DVB card ....