Technotrend/Hauppauge SAA7146 Budget and Nova-PCI DVB tuner cards
A family of early-2000s PCI digital TV tuner cards built around the Philips SAA7146 video chip, sold as Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-S (satellite), Nova-C (cable) and Nova-T (terrestrial) and the related Technotrend Budget series. They let Pentium II/III-era PCs running Windows XP or Linux receive DVB broadcasts.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting as legacy because the hardware dates to the Windows XP era and is no longer sold, yet the code still saw maintenance in linux-media as recently as 2024 and there is no replacement driver for these specific PCI boards. A small population of hobbyists and long-running DVB receivers likely still depend on it, so removing it would strand them with no alternative.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
linux-media carried a 2024 ttpci patch series touching this driver, showing it still receives upstream maintenance rather than being abandoned.
- cateee.net
LKDDb maps this directory to SAA7146-based Budget/Nova-PCI DVB boards such as Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-S/C/T and notes an earlier deprecated staging copy, i.e. legacy hardware with long-tail support.
- hauppage.com
Archived WinTV-NOVA-S PCI product page targets Windows 98/2000/ME/XP, Pentium II, and a PCI 2.1 slot, indicating an early-2000s product class rather than current hardware.
- hauppage.com
Archived WinTV-NOVA-T PCI product page likewise describes an old PCI DVB-T card for Windows XP/Pentium III-era PCs, reinforcing that new deployments are unlikely in 2025.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local Kconfig/source inspection (shell rg/sed) identified SAA7146 'Budget/Nova-PCI' DVB cards with no in-tree successor for the same legacy PCI boards. lore_file_timeline on budget.c showed recent 2024 linux-media maintenance and no removal-series evidence in the returned activity, so this is not a current remove candidate. Web search/open provided LKDDb for hardware mapping and archived Hauppauge product pages showing XP/Pentium-era PCI products; that supports obsolete hardware with only low residual deployments. Recommendation is keep-annotate: retain for legacy users, but mark/document as legacy hardware with low contemporary relevance.