New port: pvrxxx for Hauppauge PVR150/500

[Rick C. Petty]

On Thu, Oct 12, 2006 at 10:17:31AM +0100, Dieter wrote:
> > 
> > And how do you propose we write drivers for these proprietary tuners?
> > Last I checked there were very few digital tuners available, and most
> > have DRM protection.  Even finding cards which have linux drivers is quite
> > difficult!
> 
> How do the penguins write drivers?

That's my point-- there are few HD drivers around, compared to SD.  In
particular, I was looking for HD cards compatible with either US satellite
or US cable.  Granted, you may have better luck in other countries.

> What digital tuner has DRM?  Do you mean the broadcast flag?

Not at all.  I mistyped-- I meant to say tuners which accept and process
DRM.  That is, many cable companies output ecrypted HD streams.  An HD card
is useless if you're only getting SD quality output or none at all.

> The HD3000
> specifically promises to not look at it.  I haven't seen any other tuner
> mention it.

The HD3000 is no longer available, only the HD5500 is:
	http://www.pchdtv.com/
AFAICT this card only works with terrestrial broadcasts (ACST).  So yeah,
it works for about 70% of broadcast stations and about 50% of the shows I
like to watch.  Also the HD5500 doesn't have composite/audio input, so
you'll also need to buy an analog card if you have older video equipment
you wish to use.. (e.g. VCRs-- did I just say that?)

> http://www.bttv-gallery.de/

Most of those are used on analog cards.

> > And "soon" isn't very specific.  From what I've read, most countries won't
> > stop broadcasting analog for 3-10 years from now.  I wouldn't exactly call
> > that "soon".  Fortunately/unfortunately, analog's here for awhile.
> 
> "Soon" depends on where you live.  About 2 years for many of us.  And it is
> shortest time that counts, not the longest.

I wouldn't call that "soon", but use whatever terminology you wish.

There are two ways of looking at this-- 1). When is digital available for
you, and 2). When is analog no longer available for you so you're forced
into a digital card.  For #1, I'd say most people could buy cards now and
get use out of them.  I thought you had meant #2, in which case most of the
world won't be forced into digital until beyond 2010.  I guess that's
"soon", compared to the lifetime of trees.  =)

> Or do you propose that everyone
> move to whatever country plans to allow analog for 10 years?

Not at all.  I propose that if you want a certain card supported, work on
either porting a driver or reverse-engineering the chips.  Telling us that
people who are willing to do work should instead be spending their time on
other, in your opinion, "higher" priority items is just discouraging.  I'm
very glad usleep put the time into the pvrXXX driver and getting mythtv to
work in BSD.  It obviously was a high priority for him, and it is for
other people as well.  If you have different priorities, please contribute
your efforts in those areas and I'm sure the BSD userbase will be happier
having both projects completed.

> > Making linux drivers work in BSD is often nontrivial.
> 
> What can be done to make this easier?

The kernels are so different.  What might help is if someone writes
wrapper macros & other stubs/shims so fewer #ifdef patches need to be
applied as patches to the linux sources.  I, for one, am in favor of a set
of v4l userland shims (not kernel).  It might also help if linux
developers commented their crazy code more often.  I've run into headaches
when I've tried porting some linux things over to BSD.  Possibly part of
the blame lies with the lack of API documentation.

> What good is myth without tuners or output?

There are both tuners and output.  Many people who are using myth use VGA
or DVI outputs to screens/projectors.  Getting myth working first would
also help people test things like new tuners & new outputs a lot easier.
Otherwise people are stuck trying to hack together solutions using cat &
mplayer.  :-/

> Digital tuner support is not just about HD or quality.

No but that's the primary drive behind digital (that and DRM).

> There is programming
> available today on digital broadcasts that is not available on analog
> broadcasts,

Possibly, although I've not heard of any.  There's also these things
called torrents and youtube.

> And again, analog broadcasts are going away soon.

There's also a comet heading towards earth right now!  I'm positive it's
going to collide soon.  Of course when it does, we won't have to worry
about analog vs. digital.

Please pardon my sarcasm.  In all seriousness, I'm in favor of people
creating digital tuner drivers for *BSD.  Whoever has the time/ability to
do so, by all means: the community is waiting!  Or whatever contributions
they are willing to make..

What I do not appreciate is the criticism of effort on what some may
believe should be "low priority" projects.  Others are glad for these
efforts.  I'm sure there are those who are thankful of usleep's efforts
on mythtv, especially those who like the simple interface and commercial-
skipping.  I'm thankful that he spent his time getting my pvr500 card to
work in under two weeks, versus me having to wait 1-2 years for someone
to "get around to" making a digital card work in BSD.

-- Rick C. Petty