[linux-dvb] Re: More V4 Video API Q's

[Rob.McConnell@Zarlink.Com]

Hi Again,

Marcus Metzler <mocm@mocm.de> wrote on 28/09/2004 17:09:22:

> >>>>> "Rob" == Rob McConnell <Rob.McConnell@Zarlink.Com> writes:
>
>     Rob> I think the _real_ question is how close are the V4L2 and
>     Rob> Linux DVB APIs and are they starting to merge?  Would it be
>     Rob> better to have a "self-contained" set of Linux DVB APIs that
>     Rob> handle most STB h/w requirements (as well as cards) or should
>     Rob> there be some cross-pollination going on?
>
> I think the same question came up on the v4l list. The overlap between
> DVB and v4l is in decoder hardware (including overlay) and frontends
> (which would be analog TV tuners and hardware encoders). Before Nokia
> started with the DVB API, the DVB stuff was already based on v4l, but
> got changed subsequently. AFAIK, STBs like Tivo (i.e. analog receiver
> with hardware/software encoder) are partly based on v4l2, but I
> haven't looked into that very much.
> I think it would be advantageous to somehow reunite the APIs, so that
> applications can do both analog and digital TV easier and some code
> duplication in the kernel can be avoided.

Sounds good to me, although it may be a task in itself to get both
groups/MLs talking to each other.  It would make more sense, as I've just
been surfing and been reading the documentation that's on the
www.linux4.tv/Docs page.  It seems that these guys have been modifying the
video4linux 2 APIs to suit their requirements.  Also, it looks like they
had intended to use the pre-V4 Linux DVB APIs, but they didn't (and still
don't) support STB h/w.

Then you have the celinux folk mentioning their use of video4linux, but
they will still run into the same problems that I am facing right now with
STB/iDTV requirements.

So what shall we do folks?

Rob : )