[vdr] Re: Hardware project: MPEG2 decoder with ethernet adapter

[Matthias Schniedermeyer <ms@citd.de>]

On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 10:02:38PM +0200, Tobias Haustein wrote:
> * Matthias Schniedermeyer (ms@citd.de) [030601 21:20]:
> 
> > > > It's out there. And it is called dbox2. :-)
> 
> Is it really possible to connect a dbox2 to the ethernet and use it as
> frontend for vdr? As far as I know, a dbox, a playstation2, an Xbox and all
> that nice thingies cannot be used for that because you first have to add a
> mod chip and then get a special variant of linux etc. Thus making this
> approach complicated and expensive.

Not really. OK i failed in making the modification to (one of) my
dbox2(es) myself and had to send the box to someone to fix it. But after
that procedure you have a freely programmable box for which Linux is
available. And (btw) it's working great. Personaly i like the dbox2
better because it has RGB to the TV-Set. But sometimes this is bad,
because the picture to "too sharp". You can see the MPEG-Artifacts much
better. :-)

And as it converns VDR, it only needs someone to programm a little
"plugin" for VDR + the fitting "client-display"-process, hardware &
system-part is finished. :-)

Personaly i don't have a Dreambox, but AFAIK it uses the same Linux
software as the "Linux for DBox2"-Project. So i think it should be
programmable "as is", without any prior modification.

> > But i don't think a "private person" is able to invent the rounder
> > wheel. Just think of how many pins the chip have? How do you wan't to
> > connect them?
> 
> That doesn't concern me because we're doing hardware and software
> development for a living and also have lots of experience with manufacturing
> small and medium charges. I can only see two problems: Time and licence
> costs. Time is of course a major problem since we're all very busy and
> therefore, this thing could take a while. More annoying is the other
> problem. It could be (haven't checked yet), that we can't get the nescessary
> development tools or specifications because the chip vendors treat them as
> trade secret. Of course, this project will never get the 1 million parts
> volume that is nescessary to convince some vendors to cooperate.

OK. Here we reach the "dead end"-point for me. :-)



Bis denn

-- 
Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as 
bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer
wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated, 
cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous.



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