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<h1>BMK MPEG encoder cards</h1>
<p><font size="+2" color="red">
Note: The MPEX card is out of production, please save your time and don't ask BMK about it.
</font></p>
<p>
Those cards used to be manufactured by <a href="http://www.bmk-electronics.de/">BMK Elektronik</a>.
</p>
<h2>BMK MPEX MPEG2-Encoder</h2>
<p>
A Philips EMPRESS-Chip based PCI Board for Realtime MPEG-2 encoding.
</p>
<p>
It is a PCI-card based on the Philips SAA68xx
(EMPRESS) MPEG-2 encoder
and the SAA7134 Videodecoder and PCI bridge.
</p>
<p>
The MPEX board is available in two flavours:
With terrestrial TV tuner or
with four composite and one s-video (y/c) inputs.
</p>
<p>
All functions are fully supported by GPLed drivers without
hassling with proprietary microcode portions.
</p>
<p>
The driver in our download area is based on the v4l2-drivers by Gerd Knorr.
MPEG-2 output is only possible in transport stream format.
The driver is in an early stage. TS output works but no
setting of encoding parameters like bitrate or GOP-size.
All specs are open and available without NDAs.
</p>
<p>
<a href="downloads/kfir/mpex.tar.gz">Download sourcecode</a>
for the driver and the development-tools.<br>
Note that the Linux 2.6.x mainline kernel already contains
a driver for the MPEX board, just load the saa7134 module.
</p>
<p>
Please subscribe to the
<a href="http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mpeg2">
mpeg2-encoder mailinglist
</a>.
</p>
<h2>Kfir card, aka LinuxTV MPEG2 Encoder</h2>
<p><font size="+2" color="red">
Note: The Kfir card is out of production, please save your time and don't ask BMK about it.
</font></p>
<h3>Hardware</h3>
<p>
It is a simple PCI board. It has a BNC connector for composite Video, a
Y/C connector for S-video input and a 3,5 mm stereo audio input
jack. That's all. Insert this board into an empty slot, install the
driver and have fun.
</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<p>
The card supports MPEG-2 MP@ML up to 15 MBit. By passing module options
to the driver you can select
<ul>
<li>input source: composite or y/c</li>
<li>video input mode: PAL, NTSC, SECAM</li>
<li>video out mode: PAL, NTSC</li>
<li>picture size</li>
<li>bitrate</li>
<li>streamtype: program stream, transport stream, av elementary / packetized</li>
<li>audio sampling frequency</li>
<li>MPEG-1 or MPEG-2</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
There is one drawback: at this stage of our development you need to unload
and reload the driver in order to change these parameters. Reloading the
driver takes about 10 seconds.
</p>
<h3>Software</h3>
<p>
Much to our regret Visiontech did not allow us to distribute the Kfir
microcode in binary form together with our driver. The Kfir microcode is
necessary to operate the board.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, we have found a <a href="downloads/kfir/Makefile"> way to
extract the code from the Windows driver</a> for the Kfir, which ist
downloadable from their
<a href="ftp://ftp.visiontech-dml.com/pub/Win9x%5CME/KFir/KFirAppVersion4.23/">public FTP server</a>.
</p>
<p>
The Kfir driver is only an experimental version of a device driver for
the Kfir encoder board. It is a kernel module which you have to compile
on your system and insert into the kernel. After that you will get your
analog input digitized on /dev/video. You can pipe that to the network,
to a file, your MPEG2 decoder card or to your software decoder.
</p>
<p>
As for now, we do not provide any further software like an editing
suite, a player or playout solution.
</p>
<p>
This card is not a toy. You should think twice before you order. First
download our driver and try to understand it. Of course, our driver is
released under the GPL.
</p>
<h3>Known Problems, Updates, Questions</h3>
<p>
- MPEG-1 seems to make trouble.<br/>
If you have any questions or problems with installing or running,
subscribe to the
<a href="http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mpeg2">
mpeg2-encoder mailinglist
</a>.
</p>
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