[linux-dvb] Re: Full featured cards

["Adrian P Challinor" <adrian.challinor@osiris.co.uk>]

Quoting Carlo, 

I know of (but don't yet have) a Nexus-S. Yes, it is expensive. I will buy
one if I know it is going to work, but doesn't it just have a single
Video-IN connector? Looking at the Hauppauge sites, they make no mention of
a Video-Out socket. 

I'm new to this, so I don't want to make any gross statements. However, in
my research over the last few months reading web sites and message archives,
I get the impression that the cards used by VDR are no longer available to
the general public. 

My alternative to using VDR would be to use MythTV. That does seem to have
an MPEG decoding capability. Otherwise, well, it's yet another pseudo device
driver to fire MPEG encoded streams at a hardware MPEG decoder->TV out card.


Or, throw money at my problem, put a high speed CPU in the box, and do the
MPEG decoding in software! 


-----Original Message-----
From: Carlo E. Prelz [mailto:fluido@fluido.as] 
Sent: 06 February 2004 07:00
To: Adrian P Challinor; linux-dvb@linuxtv.org
Subject: Re: [linux-dvb] Full featured cards

	Subject: [linux-dvb] Full featured cards
	Date: Thu, Feb 05, 2004 at 11:24:10PM -0000

Quoting Adrian P Challinor (adrian.challinor@osiris.co.uk):

> Does anyone know where you can get the full featured cards that are needed
> by VDR? My understanding is that I need at least one card that support
> DVB-IN, DVB/TV-OUT and has an MPEG decoder on board. These seem to be in
> very short supply on the open market, so if you know of a card that is
> available I would be very glad to hear from you.

It appears vdr was targeted to the Hauppauge Nexus-s (that is, the old
Technotrend full-featured) card. Here in Holland it can be easily
found, albeit at a shamefully high price (I found it at a shop of the
Mycom chain: www.mycom.nl). I understand that this was the first card
that was available to developers.

VDR makes use of the V4L-compatible video out that was developed for
the Nexus, as well as of the OSD and CAM interface code. I understand
that VDR was developed in parallel with the dvb driver.

With a Nexus, VDR works perfectly. The unpleasant fact that I am
finding out is that the Nexus is old technology: it includes the
saa7111 DSP, that does not allow you to extract the complete
multiplexed stream - only specific PIDs, and I am experiencing, with
the same level of signal, a much higher error rate in the extracted
MPEG stream, if compared with the Hauppauge Nova (budget) card.

> Otherwise, any reason why I cant use a hi-end AGP card with a TV/DVI-out
> capability? 

In order to generate a video output, VDR needs the capability
(provided by the driver) of onboard MPEG conversion, and of on-screen
display. I *think* you can use VDR with a budget card for recording,
but you cannot see the set-top-box-like output. Porting it to using
software MPEG decoding is, I believe, not trivial. 

Carlo

-- 
  *         Se la Strada e la sua Virtu' non fossero state messe da parte,
* K * Carlo E. Prelz - fluido@fluido.as             che bisogno ci sarebbe
  *               di parlare tanto di amore e di rettitudine? (Chuang-Tzu)



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