[linux-dvb] Re: Is DVB the right place for FusionHDTV carddriver?

[John Dalgliesh <johnd@defyne.org>]

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004, Holger Waechtler wrote:
>
> Mac Michaels wrote:
> > I own a  DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold card and am writing a
> > driver for it. I have modified the cx88 V4L2 driver to
> > almost work for NTSC-M. All video and tuner functions work,
> > no sound yet.
> >
> > I want to write a driver for the ATSC transport stream. Is
> > DVB or V4L2 the best place to implement a driver for DViCO
> > FusionHDTV?
>
> It would be nice to see theDVB frontend API extended so that it
> seamlessly supports all digital TV frontends including ATSC.

So, basically, is that a yes? I would have thought linux-dvb was the
perfect place for it ... it's all MPEG-2 TS data, whether it's DVB or
ATSC. Initially you may have to reinterpret some of the frontend
tuning parameters for the different modulation scheme in 8VSB, but after
that linux-dvb has all the framework to get the transport stream into user
space, and most likely some apps will work with it unmodified (i.e. as
long as they don't look for DVB specifics).

When that all works then the frontend struct/API could be extended if
necessary (unless all params are always 'auto' in 8VSB :)

> > The card uses a Microtune 4042 FI5 tuner, LG DT3302
> > receiver, and CX23881 to interface to the PCI bus among
> > other things. Is there already DVB code to handle any of
> > these chips?
>
> as far I know, not. But the SAA7146 and the bt8xx DVB drivers are based
> on the corresponding V4L drivers, too.

I don't know if it has made it into CVS yet, but there is a driver for the
digital stream from the CX23883 that has recently been written by Chris
Pascoe to get the DVB-T version of the Fusion HDTV running. It may be a
good starting point! See <http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~chrisp/DVICO-Linux/>

Also, I wrote a driver for the Microtune 4042 myself as part of a project
to support the DVICO FusionHDTV II card on the Mac. (This stopped when the
guy testing it discovered he wasn't in a place that could receive ATSC :)
So I have no idea if it actually works but it might do ... and also I
think I remember that tuner being mentioned on this list at some stage...?

> Holger

{P^/