[vdr] Re: Hardware project: MPEG2 decoder with ethernet adapter

[Oliver Brandt <oliver_mlisten@gmx.de>]

Hi,
> 
> We thought of putting an ethernet adapter together with an MPEG2-decoder
> chip (e.g. an EM8300 or one of its better successors) into a very small case
> that can be directly attached to a standard TV set.
> 
> This little device could have the following specs:
> 
>  Connectors:
>   - 10 MBit/s ethernet connector (10BaseT)
>   - stereo audio out connector (2 x cinch)
>   - SPDIF digital audio out connector (cinch)
>   - FBAS/CVBS video out connector (cinch)
>   - S-Video video out connector (mini-DIN)
>   - probably RBG video out connector
>   - extension bus
> 
>  Features:
>   - built-in infrared receiver
>   - MPEG2 video decoder
>   - probably MPEG4 video decoder
>   - IP-based network interface with DHCP autoconfiguration
>   - firmware upload through network interface

> Using this device with an appropriate VDR plugin, one could easily hide the
> VDR server somewhere (e.g. on the roof) and wouldn't need to build a full
> featured but silent PC that can be placed in the living room or even worse
> in the bedroom.
> 
> The extension bus could be used to connect infrared transmitters, an LCD
> display or other stuff.

Sounds like a great idea! I'm just trying to build a silent VDR device
based on a via-epia 1GHz board. It is geting pretty expensive (about 400 EUR
not including the DVB-card and there will be a lot of work to do to
build a case that gets the heat away from the cpu...

Anyway, just some thoughs of mine on the whole thing:

- You should be able to add a DVD drive for playing DVDs, VCDs, CDs ...
- The chip on the DXR3 is already supported through an opensource project
  (as you all know) but it seams to be kind of hard to get information
  from Sigma on their Chip that can do DIVX and once an new format comes
  out we would pretty much have to start over adapting the project and
  build new recivers. What I was thinking of is building a cheap reciver
  using the chip used on the DXR3 (em8300 or what it was called) and
  have one powerfull, with cheap standard hardware upgradeble server do
  the work. This also saves mony if you have multiple recivers, one in
  the living room, one in the bedroo, one in the kidsroo... 
  Sascha Volkenandt's mplayer cluster plugin is pretty much
  doing what we would need. It uses an mplayer on the server to transcode
  the videostream into an (I'm not shure) mpeg1 or mpeg2 stream and
  passes it into a fifo file wich is then played back at the client.


Well, just my thoughts... I'd love to help with the project but I don't
know how to programm. Sorry. But if there is anything else I can do I'd
love to help!

Regards,
	Oliver


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