This subject comes up about every half year or so. The difference this time is that options are quickly becoming available.
A couple of Korean startups are putting out 8VSB/ATSC reception cards for the Korean market that rely on software MPEG-2 decoding. Korea uses the same standard as the United States and Canada for HDTV, so it's mainly just a matter of translating for the North American market. The nice thing about these cards is that we have a ton of open source code for the chipset that they are using--the Conexant Fusion 878A. Please see the following AVS Forum thread for more details...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=209915
The thread discussion revolves around Windows, but there is code available for Linux as well. Mainly just take what has been pieced together in the GNU Radio project for software MPEG-2 decoding plus the Fusion 878A DVB-S bridge code in this project (done for the Pinnacle TV-Sat that also uses the Fusion 878A--haven't checked on the status of this for a while). I'm sure that there are overlaps and perhaps not all of the gaps have been filled in, but I think that things are looking up, finally.
Regarding the GNU Radio project and HDTV, they are doing some wild stuff (in a good way), which I have followed and contributed some data to over the last year. Very interesting, especially for those of us who live in concrete canyons with multipath problems.
Good luck and it's nice to bring good news for HDTV w/Linux for a change. ;-)
Regards--
Dan
From: Brian Foddy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Mark Lehrer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [linux-dvb] Re: Linux HDTV Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 12:46:38 -0600
$30k, ouch. And if the card makers are bound by the same NDA, that may be a major reason why they don't release specs.
I saw the Slashdot article also, it looks interesting. However
as I understand it, there would be a couple problems.
1. The card they use to do the A-D conversion is $1300.
That takes it well out of even the expensive hobby range.
But far cheaper than $30,000.
2. I'd be concerned if the process running completely in software
could be fast enough with todays processors to be real-time
so as to create a time shifting system.
I'll definately keep an eye on the project, I subscribed to their mailing
list. And its very possible I'm not understanding their project well enough
to make a judgement.
As for doing my own reverse engineering of a card, that is quite a jump from my current skills also. I've never tried to r-e anything like that, but I'll never say never. To get a true timeshifting HDTV box would really be great.
Thanks for the info. Brian
On Sunday 23 February 2003 12:46 am, Mark Lehrer wrote: > I have been looking into this myself for awhile. It looks like all > of the affordable HDTV cards use the same chipset, Teralogic, which > will not release the programming information necessary without a > significant fee ($30k plus NDA when I called them) > > I am not quite skilled enough to reverse engineer a driver like > that. > > There was a story on Slashdot recently about a GNU project to do > this, check it out. > > Mark
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