Re: [Cooker] Re: Re: Mandrake for a PVR (was Re: Mandrake and business.)

[Stefan van der Eijk]

Well, AFAIK Freevo uses SDL and can display on FB.

I am just working on that right now.  I am finding I have to hack SDL
to display on the G400's CRTC2 using it's TV-Out mode.  Note that this
is NOT displaying to /dev/fb1 with all kinds of matroxset voodoo.
Doing it using the CRTC2 properly gives a properly aspected,
overscanned image, just like watching real TV.  No black borders and
dicking around with framebuffer timings.  See the recent directfb-dev
archives for more details.

Is it based on this?

http://www.sci.fi/~syrjala/directfb/readme.txt

I'm looking into the latest G400 / G450 FB stuff (from ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/linux/matrox-latest/ ) Perhaps the kernel can be patched to use version 1.64 (1.62 now).
Some other stuff I'm looking at:
http://www.flashdance.cx/tv-out-mga-fb.html
http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.eriksen/matrox_tvout/

I have not looked at any of these, but if they address the second head
as a "second" framebuffer (i.e. kernel config item
CONFIG_FB_MATROX_MULTIHEAD=y) then it's the wrong approach.  The
approach that DirectFB is currently using is the exact same way that
DVD playback works in Windows, which means the G400 displays a
properly interlaced, overscanned image to the television.

Question remains, can the two solutions co-exist? Otherwise I forsee problems when trying to merge it into the distro (if it ever comes that far).

and will any fb application work with it or will they need to be patched (like mplayer http://www.sci.fi/~syrjala/directfb/mplayer/)

It's to be able to program the PVR from a web browser. I like this feature --> it'll let me program it from work :-)

But if you have the programs you want to watch scheduled by the name
of the program and not by it's timeslot information (i.e. think
old-world VCR BS) and your PVR does the timeslot programming for you
based on when your programs are on (by downloading programming data),
when would you need to program it from work?  I suppose if you are at
work and think all-of-a-sudden of a new program that you want to start
watching, but is that a real-world situtiaton?

Don't you usually make those decisions while sitting in front of the
TV watching?

Uh, no. :-)

I see the promo's for nice programs a few days befor they air, and then forget to watch them (don't have a VCR of any kind at the moment).

In any case, a web interface is not a bad idea, just very low on my
priority list.

:-)

Stefan

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