Table of Contents
The DVB frontend API was designed to support three types of delivery systems:
Terrestrial systems: DVB-T, DVB-T2, ATSC, ATSC M/H, ISDB-T, DVB-H, DTMB, CMMB
Cable systems: DVB-C Annex A/C, ClearQAM (DVB-C Annex B), ISDB-C
Satellite systems: DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB Turbo, ISDB-S, DSS
The DVB frontend controls several sub-devices including:
Tuner
Digital TV demodulator
Low noise amplifier (LNA)
Satellite Equipment Control (SEC) hardware (only for Satellite).
The frontend can be accessed through
/dev/dvb/adapter?/frontend?
. Data types and
ioctl definitions can be accessed by including
linux/dvb/frontend.h
in your application.
NOTE: Transmission via the internet (DVB-IP) is not yet handled by this API but a future extension is possible.
On Satellite systems, the API support for the Satellite Equipment Control (SEC) allows to power control and to send/receive signals to control the antenna subsystem, selecting the polarization and choosing the Intermediate Frequency IF) of the Low Noise Block Converter Feed Horn (LNBf). It supports the DiSEqC and V-SEC protocols. The DiSEqC (digital SEC) specification is available at Eutelsat.
Usually, the first thing to do when the frontend is opened is to check the frontend capabilities. This is done using FE_GET_INFO. This ioctl will enumerate the DVB API version and other characteristics about the frontend, and can be opened either in read only or read/write mode.