[vdr] Re: Hauppauge DVB-C, Conax and PCMCIA?

["Otto J. Makela" <om@iki.fi>]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 18:41:27 +0100, Rene Bartsch wrote:
> Am Montag, 10. November 2003 17:06 schrieben Sie:
> > If I have one of the rather rare systems which has both PCI- and PCMCIA-
> > card slots, could I plug a Conax CAM module directly into the PCMCIA
> > without getting a Common Interface module for the Hauppauge DVB-C card?
> 
> Electrically it's no problem to put a CAM into a PCMCIA-Slot as a
> CAM is just a microprocessor with firmware and PCMCIA-interface. As
> a CAM has a well defined interface, it also would be easy to support
> it in software-players.

This is what I've gathered.

> But currently there is no kernel-module to handle a CAM. Because of
> the standardized interface of the CAM that module would just have to
> register the device and pass through the ioctls of the
> CAM-interface.
> 
> I volunteered to do the things around (gathering vendor-IDs,
> registering a major number for CAMs, etc.) several times, but I
> didn't find anyone who volunteered to do the programming part for
> the kernel-module.

I see. However, the specialized PCMCIA slot provided by the Common
Interface plugin module for the Hauppauge card are supported properly
by the Linux drivers?

How well is the CAM <=> CI interaction understood by the open source
drivers, would the initialization and use of the CAM in a real PCMCIA
slot prove to be a problem in this case?

> That solution even would be legal as you use the CAM/Smartcard
> delivered by your payTV-provider ...

Actually, you can buy the CAM off the open market, all you need is
the smartcard from your TV provider.

This exactly was my idea, since the CAM and the CI module both cost
~100e, and I was hoping I could get away without buying the CI if the
CAM could go into a pre-existing PCMCIA slot.

A shame, I guess there isn't anyone interested in doing this now either?
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