Nicolas Huillard wrote: > Klaus Schmidinger a ?crit : > >>Several years ago, when VDR was first developed, it was based upon a >>then all new DVB card, which implemented a complete device with tuner, >>MPEG decoder and optional CI adapter. >> >>Now, more than five years later, and with the advent of HDTV, it's time >>for a new generation of DVB devices. >> >>Here's a list of the features such a device should have: >> >> http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/hdtv-dream.htm >> >>Ok, this is a dream I have - I don't know if any manufacturer will >>ever come up with such a device. But then again, in the mid-nineties >>the DVB cards we have now were a dream as well... >> >>Please let me know what you think about this, and if I have forgotten >>anything or got something wrong. > > > I do not fully agree with the "Full Featured vs. Budget" concept. > > There are plenty of non-DVB chips, cards and motherboards that are able > to decode MPEG2, and MPEG4 in the near future. > I envision a budget-only DVB card world, where the MPEG[24] decoding is > delegated to another card, maybe onboard (on-mobo). Each card can be > optimized for cost by the manufacturer. > MPEG2 can already be decoded by many chipsets, on motherboards with slow > and silent processors. MPEG4 will soon be (I think about VIA CLE266 -> > CN400, but nVidia is on the way, and others too). > > The current problem is lack of completely open-source drivers : there is > either a binary lib, or a binary firmware, or a complete binary driver. > That's what really limit possibilities. > > When softdevice will be able to use the onboard hardware decoder of > graphic cards, we will have achieved that part of the deal, for current > DVB programs. Well, a "full featured" card is certainly the most user friendly way of doing it, because it could provide both video _and_ audio, and there wouldn't be problems with keeping audio and video in sync, because all this would be done on the FF DVB card. Also, I would expect that switching between channels should be faster with a FF card than with a budget/softdevice combo. Nevertheless, if there were a card that can decode MPEG2/4/HDTV video _and_ normal/AC3 audio, and a "budget" card that can receive DVB-S2 and has CAM support, I'd go for that, too. But my dream continues to be a real FF card ;-) Klaus
