[vdr] Re: A modular VDR.

[René Bartsch <rene@bartschnet.de>]

Hi,

the idea is well (because I have the DVB-S-cards in my server and want to
watch them on my X-Terminal connected by gigabit ethernet. Also the
MPEG2-acceleration-routines of the graphic-cards could be used (e.g.
NVIDIA). But the old way should also work, in case only a TV is connected.

For now, only KVDR is a solution.

But VDR is great!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carsten Koch" <Carsten.Koch@icem.de>
To: <vdr@linuxtv.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 2:30 PM
Subject: [vdr] A modular VDR.


>
> My VDR PC has no available PCI slots.
> One of the things that I would like to add, is a third
> DVB card, so I can do two recordings while watching.
>
> Not too long ago, I said that I like Klaus' minimalist
> concept of using the full potential of the DVB-S card,
> i.e. taking advantage of its video output and its on
> screen display.
>
> On the other hand, a PC does not work without a graphics
> card and I cannot put anything else into the AGP slot
> anyway.
>
> So, while I am making good use of one of my DVB-S cards,
> my graphics card is kind of wasted in my VDR PC.
>
> A second thing that speaks for the use of the graphics
> card for video output is the fact that DivX ;-) replay
> via the DVB-S card takes more CPU power than my humble
> 450 MHz VDR PC is able to come up with, while mplayer
> works just fine on the same PC when playing back via
> the graphics card.
>
> As a third argument, I believe that with OSD enabled,
> the firmware has less buffer space available, which may
> cause occasional problems.
>
> For all those (and more) reasons, I am wondering if a
> modular VDR architecture would not be a great improvement.
> Would it not be nice to have a bunch of non-interactive
> modules that take care of things such as timed recordings,
> replay of the various media etc. plus a small interactive
> module that presents the OSD and controls all the other
> modules? The display module could take advantage of TV-out
> for graphics cards that have it or display on VGA.
>
> A minimum configuration would be a lot cheaper, as it
> could consist of a budget DVB card and a cheap graphics
> card which together cost less than a full DVB-S card
> and provide more benefit.
>
> With that architecture, the DVB cards could concentrate
> on what they do best: get the data from the sky.
> The graphics card could also concentrate on what it does
> best: show the images.
> With only one DVB card, we could do timeshifting, etc.
> With a weak CPU, we could play back DivX ;-).
> The OSD would not cause playback distortions or other
> problems in the firmware. It could also be as large as
> we want with as many colors as needed and would still
> perform well.
> It would be easy to add modules for MP3, DivX ;-), DVD,
> etc. without having to patch VDR.
>
>
> Am I missing anything that makes this a bad idea?
> (except for the obvious, of course, that it may
> be a lot of work to recycle the current VDR components
> into a new architecture)
>
> Carsten.
>
>