[linux-dvb] S2API - Status - Thu Sep 11th

[Steven Toth]

Hello!

More progress today, 7 new patches were merged - all related to the 
feedback and suggestions we had.... And a bugfix. :)

The DTV_SET/GET command syntax has been rationalised, as Hans requested. 
This cleans up the application API nicely. Various internal improvements 
and code cleanup related to variable length arrays, moving values 
to/from userspace to the kernel. Interfacing to the demods to allow them 
to interact with set/get property requests, if they chose to do so. 
Quite a lot of changes internally and to the user facing API.

If you're planning to test then you'll need the tune-v0.0.5.c to see the 
different. (steventoth.net/linux/s2/tune-v0.0.5.tgz)

In addition, some related news:

mkrufky spent some time adding S2API isdb-t support to the siano driver, 
that's working pretty well - tuning via the S2API app.

Two tree here, offering slightly different approaches, one with S2API, 
one using some spare bits in the DVB-T tuning fields.

http://linuxtv.org/hg/~mkrufky/sms1xxx-s2api-isdbt/
http://linuxtv.org/hg/~mkrufky/sms1xxx-isdbt-as-dvbt/

(See tune-v0.0.5.tgz for example ISDB-T tuning code)

If you're interested in seeing the impact of switching to S2API for this 
driver, see the set_frontend() func, it's a small change - just a few 
lines to reference the dtv_frontend_properties cache.

I don't think we're quite ready to announce we've conquered the complete 
ISDB-T API, so don't assume that this is concrete.... As we experiment 
with other ISDB-T products we'll probably find reasons to tweak the API 
a little further as a standard begins to form..... but tuning through a 
clean API is a great step forward, and its working now, today. Thank you 
mkrufky :)

Hans Werner sent a large patch for the multifrontend HVR3000/HVR4000 
combined DVB-T/DVB-S/S2 support for the S2API tree. (Thanks Hans - this 
was obviously a lot of manual merge work, it's greatly appreciated.)

What would everyone like to see happen with this patch?

Would you prefer to see this dealt with outside of the S2API discussion, 
or would you like to see this included and merged? Let me know your 
thoughts. Andreas also has the multifrontend thread running, so comment 
here if you would like to see this as part of the S2API patches, or 
comment on the Andreas thread of you want this as a separate patchset at 
a later date.

Darron Broad has offered to bring the cx24116.c driver up to date with 
some additions he has in his repositories. With any luck we may see 
these merged into the current cx24116 driver within a few days. Thank 
you Darron.

Patrick, I haven't looked at your 1.7MHz bandwidth suggestion - I'm open 
to ideas on how you think we should do this. Take a look at todays 
linux/dvb/frontend.h and see if these updates help, or whether you need 
more changes.

Igor has been busy patching the szap-s2 tool 
(http://liplianindvb.sourceforge.net/hg/szap-s2/) so many thanks to 
Igor! Gregoire has been running some basic tests and appears to be 
having some success, that's encouraging. Thank you.

What's next?

Now's probably a good time to start patching dvb-apps. I think the 
frontend.h changes are close enough for that work to begin. This will 
probably start Friday, so keep your eyes and open for the 
stoth/s2api-dvb-apps tree appearing ... and an announcement here.

Thanks again to everyone, your efforts are appreciated!

Regards,

Steve