[linux-dvb] Re: FF cards alter PTS'?

[Klaus Schmidinger <Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de>]

Holger Waechtler wrote:
> 
> Klaus Schmidinger wrote:
> > Holger Waechtler wrote:
> >
> >>Oliver Endriss wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Thursday 20 November 2003 15:59, Robert Schlabbach wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>From: "Klaus Schmidinger" <Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Robert Schlabbach wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>AFAIK, the specs for the TT designs have never been published either,
> >>>>>>and the drivers you have now are the result of guessing and reverse
> >>>>>>engineering. I don't see why this shouldn't be repeated for more
> >>>>>>up-to-date designs than the old TT ones...
> >>>>>
> >>>>>True - but soembody actually has to _do_ this ;-)
> >>>>>Apparently the interest in this isn't high enough, yet...
> >>>>
> >>>>Maybe the incentives just aren't high enough - why bother reverse
> >>>>engineering a design that's technically no improvement over the TT ones?
> >>>>Now if there was a card that was actually a technical advance (e.g. a
> >>>>DVB-S2 card, or a hybrid DVB-C/T card, or a card with a better suited PCI
> >>>>bridge with a deep FIFO, or a card with a much quicker sync'ing
> >>>>demodulator), I'm sure someone would get into reverse engineering it...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Exactly, that's the point.
> >>>
> >>>IIRC some recent budget cards also require closed-source firmware,
> >>>which has to be taken from the windows driver.
> >>>This is a step in the wrong direction.
> >>
> >>Get real. These cards are again Technotrend cards. Or do you know
> >>another design which is using the TDA10045 demod?
> >>
> >>
> >>>There is no advantage except that these cards are really cheap.
> >>
> >>?!? sorry, I don't understand you. They do their job and are cheap,
> >>isn't this advantage enough?
> >>
> >>You accept silently all the limitations of the av711x: a OSD that is far
> >>from what you expect for a modern STB (the OSD is not even able to
> >>display 8bit DVB subtitles correctly), no way to pass a high-bandwidth
> >>stream to the host and process it there, no way to decode HDTV or even
> >>MPEG4 sources. Their cheap alternatives provide you all this,
> >
> >
> > What?? They have a better OSD? I thought they don't have an OSD at all
> > (let a lone a TV out)?!
> 
> When you take the framebuffer of your graphics card you get the freedom
> to draw anything you want into your OSD, you got rid of all limitations.
> 
> > Holger, please realize that we are talking about FULL FEATURED cards here!
> 
> like mentioned before: Full Featured cards an anachronism, I hope no
> company will be so foolish to produce such a beast again for the mass
> market.

I really fail to see your point. If a company were to produce a *GOOD*
full featured DVB card, with a firmware (if necessary) that really works
and doesn't require constant fixing, and an OSD that provides a full screen,
8bpp resolution, what would be wrong with that? It appears to me like the idea
of a full featured DVB card seems like "blasphemy" to you. Just because
one company was unable to deliver a flawless product doesn't need to
keep all others from doing a better job.

> Do you remember why dinosaurs died? They expected their environment to
> adopt and were not willing to change their mind. Hope that VDR won't
> share their destiny. The DVB hardware environment has changed - be happy
> about it: things became cheaper, better and more robust.

Well, repeating myself again: if you want a software decoder device, just
write a device plugin and be happy.

Do you really expect me to dump my FF DVB cards, just because there are
lots of DVB cards out there without MPEG decoder? As long as my cards work,
there is no incentive for me to implement a software decoder. I made the
plugin interface available, so anybody who wants to can implement it.

Klaus


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