Demodulator

A Demodulator (short Demod) recovers (demodulates) the original information from an intermediate frequency (IF) that is provided to it by a tuner. The type of demodulator IC used for this task of information recovery is specific and dependent upon the nature of the signal transmission scheme involved.

In the case of analog TV, the IF inputted into the demodulator contains the composite signal that was originally modulated onto the RF carrier. After recovery, the demodulator outputs a CVSB signal, which will then need to be digitized through sampling techniques performed by a A/V decoder.

In the case of digital TV transmission schemes, the IF inputted into the demodulator contains a MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) that was originally modulated onto the RF carrier. In the process of recovering that TS, digital demodulators will perform Forward Error Correction (Convolutional Viterbi- and Block-Reed-Solomon-Decoding). This whole process is sometimes referred to as RF-to-bits, for, unlike the case with analog IF demodulators, the recovered signal outputted from the digital demodulator is already a digital bit stream; specifically a TS. The TS will in turn be sent to a decoder in order to display (and, depending upon what format the underlying video content contained within the TS was encoded with, this could be a MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 decoder ... and either hardware or software based).

Demodulator Chipsets

Analogue IF Demodulators

A Sortable List of Analog IF Demodulators

Vendor	Model	Standards	Linux Support	Comments
NXP (ex-Philips)	TDA9887	PAL, SECAM and NTSC	✔ Yes	-
Xceive	XC3028	NTSC, PAL	er, somewhat	firmware galore
Xceive	XC5000	NTSC, PAL	er, somewhat	firmware galore

... and so on ...

Digital Demodulators

A Sortable List of Digital Demodulators

Vendor	Model	Standard	Linux Support	Comments
Afatech	AF9005	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM. A combo USB bridge & demod IC
Afatech	AF9015	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM. A combo USB bridge & demod IC
Afatech	AF9035	DVB-T	✔ Yes	; firmware required
ATI/AMD	Nxt2000	ATSC	? Unknown	Supports 8-VSB, QAM; firmware required
ATI/AMD	Nxt2002	ATSC	✔ Yes	Supports 8-VSB, QAM; firmware required
ATI/AMD	Nxt2004	ATSC	✔ Yes	Supports 8-VSB, QAM; firmware required
ATI/AMD	NXT6000	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM
ATI/AMD	Theater 31x	ATSC	✘ No	Supports 8-VSB, QAM
Atmel	AT76C651	DVB-C	? Unknown	supports QAM
Commsonic	CMS0014	DVB-S2	? Unknown	QPSK 8PSK, 16APSK and 32APSK
Conexant	CX24116	DVB-S2	? Unknown
Conexant	CX22700	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM
Conexant	CX24110	DVB-S	✔ Yes	supports QPSK
DiBcom	DIB3000M	DVB-T	✔ Yes	supports COFDM
DiBcom	DIB3000P	DVB-T	✔ Yes	supports ?
DiBcom	DiB7xxx	DVB-T	✔ Yes	supports ?
E3C	EC168	DVB-T	exp
Eccincorp	ECC3100 (SkyPHY)	DVB-S2	? Unknown
Fujitsu	MB86A16	DVB-S	@mantis source (?)	supports QPSK
Intel				there are several intel demods that could be added here
LG	DT3302	ATSC	✔ Yes	Supports 8-VSB, QAM
LG	DT3303	ATSC	✔ Yes	Supports 8-VSB, QAM
LSI Logic Corporation	L64781	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM
LSI Logic Corporation	L64782	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM
Microtune	MT8872	DVB-T	? Unknown	COFDM
Montage	M88DS3000	DVB-S2	✔ Yes	QPSK 8PSK, 16APSK and 32APSK
Montage	M88DS3002	DVB-S2	✔ Yes	QPSK 8PSK, 16APSK and 32APSK
Oren	or51211	ATSC	✔ Yes	supports 8-VSB and QAM; firmware required, however, no QAM capable firmware is known
Oren	or51132	ATSC	✔ Yes	supports 8-VSB and QAM; firmware required
Philips	TDA10021	DVB-C	✔ Yes	Supports QAM
Philips	TDA10045	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM
Philips	TDA10046	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM
Philips	TDA10048	DVB-T	✔ Yes	Supports COFDM
Philips	TDA8083	DVB-S	✔ Yes	supports QPSK
Samsung	s5h1409	ATSC	✔ Yes	Supports 8-VSB, QAM. Also known as the Conexant CX24227
Samsung	s5h1411	ATSC	✔ Yes	Supports 8-VSB, QAM.
Sony	CXD2820	DVB-T2 and also DVB-C and DVB-T	✔ Yes	supports ?
SPaSE	SP8870	DVB-T	? Unknown	supports COFDM
SPaSE	SP8872	DVB-T	? Unknown	COFDM
STMicroelectronics	STV0297	DVB-C	✔ Yes	supports QAM
STMicroelectronics	STV0299	DVB-S	✔ Yes	supports QPSK
STMicroelectronics	STB0899	DVB-S2	✔ Yes	supports 8PSK, QPSK, 16APSK
STMicroelectronics	STV0900/3	DVB-S2	? Unknown	supports QPSK
STMicroelectronics	STV0900	DVB-S2	? Unknown
STMicroelectronics	STV0900B	DVB-S2	? Unknown
VLSI Technology	VES1893	DVB-S	✔ Yes	supports QPSK
VLSI Technology	VES1993	DVB-S	✔ Yes	supports QPSK
VLSI Technology	VES1820	DVB-C	✔ Yes	supports QAM
Zarlink Semiconductor	MT312	DVB-S/DSS	✔ Yes	supports QPSK
Zarlink Semiconductor	MT352	DVB-T	✔ Yes	supports COFDM
Zarlink Semiconductor	ZL10312	DVB-S/DSS	✘ No	supports QPSK
Zarlink Semiconductor	ZL10313	DVB-S/DSS	✘ No	supports QPSK
Zoran	Cascade2 (CAS-220)	ATSC	? Unknown	Supports 8-VSB, QAM. Formerly Oren

...and so on ...

Also see

• List of Chipset Vendors