[linux-dvb] Re: Supported HDTV card for use in Europe?

[Gavin Hamill <gdh@acentral.co.uk>]

On Tuesday 09 November 2004 08:59, post wrote:

> BTW Can someone explain again, how HDTV should be able with a normal budget
> card (like the SkyStar2)? 

A budget card lets the host PC do the MPEG decoding and display, so it's at 
the discretion of whatever software you run on the host PC.


> And what exectly was the reason, why this is not possible with a FF card?

The FF cards have a maximum resolution of about 720x576, 50 fields per second 
interlaced. This is clearly not compatible with the resolutions and 
progressive nature of many HDTV sources.

Another reason is the bitrate.. the FF cards generally max out at 10Mbps, and 
HDTV streams often exceed this.

I would also expect a lack of decode buffer space on the FF cards, so, even if 
there were sufficient ARM CPU power to decode the stream, you would get no 
higher definition than you current experience, leaving the whole exercise 
rather moot...

So, stick with a powerful CPU+software, or wait around for an 'HDTV hardware 
card' whenever that will arrive....

Cheers,
Gavin.