[linux-dvb] Re: V4 API proposal

[Andreas Oberritter <andreas@oberritter.de>]

On Thu, 2003-03-13 at 00:00, Emard wrote:
> I would also suggest the global idea should be
> to try to optimize the api for budget-type cards only, 
> and silently discard any onbard mpeg or hardware
> demux as if we already had mpeg2 decoder and descrambler
> in open source either in the kernel or as external application.

I think you misunderstood something. One major goal is to use the dvb
api in many set top boxes. Those do have very specialized hardware. This
hardware e.g. allows the cpu to operate at a low frequency and therefore
those boxes may be designed cool and silent enough to be a nice thing to
enjoy.

Btw. as far as I am informed it is not legal (at least in most
countries) to implement a dvb descrambler in software which makes it far
from legal to implement it as open source software. Additionaly this
would require to do some stuff which is typical for CAMs in software,
which is definitely not what conditional access system manufacturers
would like you to do.

> Sooner we will all have cpus fast enough to do all the
> demuxing and deskrambling with less than 10% cpu usage.

See above. They are too hot and their fans are too noisy. PCs don't fit
into a family's living room. Using DVB on little endian machines (I
guess you only thought of typical x86 systems) is a mess. DVB suits much
better into big endian machines.

> Remember analogy with expensive early soundcards with 
> onboard sound FX/midi/mpeg dsp chips, 
> compared to simple dummy 16 bit wav output 'dsp' chips.

Most people still have amplifiers, cd players, dvd players, tuners etc.
Not every device in the world does fit into a PCI slot.

> Nowdays we all have simple dsp wav output cards while
> mp3 decompression is done by the software.

...and mp3, mpeg2 audio, ac3 etc. decompression in hardware.

Regards,
Andreas



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