demodulator chip datasheet (was: Re: Driver for Asus P7131 and other SAA-based cards ?)

[Dieter]

> If someone stumbles by chance upon the programming documentation of a  
> DVB-S2 or even a DVB-S chip, I'm all ears. But I think all digital  
> stuff is locked away because of some legal stuff from holliwood (DRM),  
> even if it is about free TV stations.

See if TI has a DVB chip.  The other day I finally found an ATSC/8VSB
(and QAM) demodulator chip with a datasheet.

The TI TVP9900

Claims to exceed A/74 and have "Superior Multipath Performance
Demodulating for Brazil Ensembles A Through E".

Supports "smart" antennas.  (I'm not convinced that smart
antennas are worth bothering with.  Every tuner would need
its own antenna, and it sounds like the antennas aren't that
great.  But hey, having support for it is better than not
having it.)

US$6 in quantity "1ku" (does that mean 1000?)

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tvp9900.html
http://www.digitaltvdesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?printableArticle=true&articleId=199701903

I was hoping the datasheet would tell how to get the coefficients
being used for the equalizer taps, but it doesn't appear to even
mention them.  :-(

I can't find much on sibling chips TVP9007 or TVP9010.  :-(
It appears that the TVP9007 includes a mpeg decoder.

At least one ATSC-to-NTSC convertor box uses a TI 9xxx chip.
Does anyone know of a TI 9xxx based card/box with a computer
interface (Ethernet, Firewire, PCIe/PCI, ...) ?

----

On the mpeg decoding front, the penguins have xv working on AMD/ATI
up through R500 based on the recent docs that AMD/ATI released.
The R600 chips may or may not get video decoding documented due
to it being mixed in with the DRM crap.