dTV and Pinnacle PCTV Sat ?  

Wolfgang: that's an interesting setup. Perhaps it is similar to the WinTV-D card for ATSC, i.e., it uses the 878 sometimes as a decoder, sometimes as a PCI bridge.

Do you know what reference design this uses? Perhaps it is a modified Fujitsu/Siemens reference design? Do you have a further list of chips that are contained on the board (I don't think there are too many)?

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Dan

[This message has been edited by dschmelzer (edited 04-29-2001).]

I think it would be a "crap shoot"--might work, might not. Make sure the shop has a good return policy. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif

Good luck on your decision.

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Dan

The 878 and Fusion 878A aren't the same chip, although perhaps those differences are slightly less important on DVB (I think many of the mods for the Fusion had to do with the digital bandwidth). Further, the DStream is at least a slightly different design, including a different tuner (Philips) and demodulator (NxtWave for VSB).

I don't think there is any open source code out there on the Conexant tuner and demodulator, although it might not be extremely difficult to add full digital suport, given the correct documentation, and software components (inlcuding an MPEG-2 decoder).

If you're a gambling man, you might as well try it, if just for fun.

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Dan

[This message has been edited by dschmelzer (edited 04-29-2001).]

The PCTV-Sat from Pinnacle is indeed based upon the DStreamDBS reference design. I haven't tried it but the analog inputs (S-Vid, CVBS) should work fine in dTV. Maybe I can check it out this week and point you to which HW to 'select' on the dropdown in dTV. Don't expect any channel tuning to work. The front end is nothing like terrestrial tuning.
878A is newer version of 878 but functionally all the same. BT or CN are prefix changes following the migration of our company name from Brooktree to Conexant over the last few years.
Wolfgang, how do you like the PCTV-Sat?
Cheers,
Tim Wilhelm, Conexant Systems

TimW -

Do you know if the Fusion 878A is speeded up any? I think I read in one of the older datasheets that the BT chips couldn't capture more than 240 lines / field (NTSC, 480i).

Is is possible to capture 480p using the Fusion? Or is the limitation still the same? I'm actually thinking about cards like the WinTV-d here, that use the PCI bridge on the decoded data.

- Tom

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(This sentience has tree errors.)

The analog decoder and DMA-ing performance are the same on 878 and 878A.

There was a speed up applied to the digital I/O however...the GPIO parr and ser modes. As for 480p, there is no prob if it is still compressed/encoded in a transport stream (that would be less than 20mbps, 2.5MB/s,... slow) but I assume you know that and are asking about decoded 480p60 (~50MB/s) to an overlay. I haven't tried that and since its such a leap over normal (~20MB/s) 480i I'd hesitate to say yes before actually attempting it. I have burst through 80MB/s on an 878A but not with video so I dont have a feel for how video into a VGA frame buffer would look or behave. I'd be worried about the various VGA_frame_buffers systemic speed and the PCI_bus losing its sense of humor on some older mobo's/chipsets. Maybe no prob, but still would need to test out alot.

To find out if decoded 480p60 is even avail on a WinTV-D card you would need to ask Haup.

Cheers, Tim

Tim: thanks for your clarification and add'l info. Is there a list of the dStreamDBS cards currently available, so that I could reference them on the dTV web site? Of course, dTV couldn't add full support w/o a software MPEG-2 decoder, but it would be nice to note that at least the s-video works.

Re the WinTV-D, it uses a 480i hardware MPEG-2 decoder, so we couldn't do 480p60 on it. However, I know of at least one new card project that could use 480p60 or 480p30 capabilities, so would be interested in finding out if it is possible.

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Dan

[This message has been edited by dschmelzer (edited 05-06-2001).]

Tim -


Thanks.

Yeah, I was talking about decoded data and the Fusion chip possible limitations. Just wondering if it would be possible to tweak one of these WinTV-d's for 480p, since machines are faster now than when they were designed. (is multimedia time faster than internet time? http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif )

Unfortunately, I don't think Hauppage has ever release hardly any technical info on the WinTV-d card. It's up to us to puzzle it out.

BTW, the dTV software for instance happily transfers over 40 MBS to the overlay buffer, just in software, not to mention the other incoming 20 MBS being DMA'd to system memory by the BT chip.

- Tom

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(This sentience has tree errors.)

[This message has been edited by trbarry (edited 05-06-2001).]

Never mind. Question answered.

[This message has been edited by dschmelzer (edited 05-06-2001).]

Dan,
The Pinnacle PCTV-Sat is the first that I know of to be on the market. Either Wolfgang or I will post back once we try dTV on it.

Tom,
Tom Wrote:
"BTW, the dTV software for instance happily transfers over 40 MBS to the overlay buffer, just in software, not to mention the other incoming 20 MBS being DMA'd to system memory by the BT chip."
Aye, but the 40+MB/s to overlay is over AGP. My worry would be sending 50MB/s down the PCI bus and if it was a PCI VGA could the IO/frame buffer handle it. Probably not a problem (in theory) on both counts, but it deserves pessimism and try-out b4 giving it a hearty nod.

Wolfgang,
I hear it is a good product, hw & sw. I played with an early version. I think it even has TiVo like pause for sat streams? Let us know what you think.

Cheers, Tim

Dan and Wolfgang,

I checked out dTV 2.12 on our DStreamDBS and last I checked the PCTV-sat used the same S-vid and CVBS inputs to 878A. So, PCTV-sat should work fine. Board can be "Unknown 878" or "Conexant Foghorns" but both with "no tuner". There are probably lots of other board selections that work also.

Cheers, TimW