For DVB-T, a lot of devices supported by linux require only USB 1.1, so they are OK for Efika. See here:
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB_USB

For analog TV:
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Analog_TV

Hauppauge's WinTV-USB is 1.1 and even if you have 2.0 you get the same performance:
http://www.hauppauge.de/ital/pages/prod ... a_usb.html

If you spend the PCI slot on Efika for a cheap USB 2.0 card,
(+Firewire if you want), you get more expandability through USB-based cards: 2nd networking card (RJ45, bluetooth or Wifi), hi-speed flash memories, and so on.

There's only one problem: you need a USB to VGA adapter.
I have found this:
http://www.sitecom.com/product.php?prod ... groupid=20
It is supported by the recent linux kernels and by X.org through the sisusb module. See:
http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisusbvga.shtml
Under Debian the package is "xserver-xorg-video-sisusb".

The Sitecom CN-105 is not so cheap (compared to the price of Efika) and don't expect great graphics performance, but I think it could work.

I hope you'll find the links above useful.

im sorry but while some old USB 1.1 DVB devices might work to some degree, USB 1.1 can NOT supply the required average throughput that the DVB needs to pass through the MUX that being anything from 24 Mbps digital transmission to about the 38 Mbit/s mark on average.

and even the linuxtv tells you that
"Due to the limited USB1.1 Bus Bandwidth of about 12MBit only selected PIDs can get transferred over the USB Bus to the Host. Some High-Bandwidth Transponders don't work, HDTV receiption is not possible." the developers are always telling people to ditch the usb1.1 interface and just use usb2 as thats what their supporting for a very long time now.

you wouldnt be able to pass through the full transport stream (on average 4/5 channels muxed)as the spec states, to save or pass it/them on over (w)lan.

and thats before the VGA device is pluged in and eating even more of that shared USB 1.1 throughput.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=75876
http://erg.abdn.ac.uk/research/future-n ... trans.html

id hope that if the FPGA makes it to the board , then at least that as already said, could be used to good effect for Mpeg4/AVC and hope that a future board was made to replace these initial prototypes and make these problems go away for the medium/long term future (rememebr [HD]IPTV is the money maker real soon now).

lets make it clear, i would like the board to become really well used but we cant keep glossing over the short comings shall we say, and lead people to beleave these boards can be used for projects when its clear it currently cant (points at Matt) .

I said it in another thread, I repeat it again:
You can get an Hauppauge PVR 350 or PVR 500 for analog, a Technotrend "Full featured card" for DVB and their equivalent for DVB-T and DVB-S.

Such cards have an on board MPEG2 decoder (also an encoder for analog cards) which will take your video signal and decode it for you and send it directly to the video out ports on the card.
I had this runing fine on a Celeron 300 Mhz. The Efika should not have any pb doing it.
The only downside with this setup is that when you want to play video files that are not MPEG2 your have to use specific players that decode the streams with the CPU and push the GFX to the PVR350 video output. This is quite slow and I don't know if it is possible with the other cards I mentioned.

thank you cdfr, its been been some time since i thought about these cards (to expensive for many people), but yes these might be an option.

in the interests of trying to give as balanced and correct view as i can, and keeping in mind my view that AVC and IPTV is were many people will be looking for the next inovation, and hence massive (but fair)profits.

all that not withstanding, i think people might find a use for the the older tech.

some insist (willfully or not)on using the generic 'MPEG4' term when infact it should be made clear that Mpeg4/ASP (aka part2/Divx/Xvid) is the far older codec , were as Mpeg4/AVC (aka part10/H.264) is the codec that will be used everywere, incuding my advocated 'personal DVB IPTV'.

keeping that older ASP in mind, perhaps this Yuan card might be usable (perhaps BBRV could get some and test for fully working and usablility), they too call it Mpeg4 were as its really the older ASP
http://www.yuan.com.tw/en/products/vdo_pg400.html#spec .

all the current Yuan cards both pci and usb refer to just mpeg4 but are not AVC but ASP, i cant find a current price but perhaps if someone wants to test it they might report back here and find a good use for these things?.


"
Major Features:
Most advanced VWEB hardware MPEG4 encode engine
Real time Hardware MPEG4 compression in Full D1 resolution
Digital video recording in MPEG4, Divx ®, MPEG2 / DVD, and MPEG1/ VCD
Watch Live TV and Recoding TV program on PC
Ghost Reducer, 3D Y/C Separation, and Noise Reduction (optional)
Time shifting and scheduler recording

Features
PCI 2.1 MPEG4 Encoder card
Records DVD-quality video on PC (720x480-NTSC, 720x576-PAL)
Digital video recording, directly capture from video source (such as TV, VCR, DVD, Camcorder, etc.) into MPEG4, MPEG2, MPEG1, DVD, VCD, and Divx® file
Watch TV on PC (NTSC, PAL or SECAM TV system)
High quality TV tuner for hyper band cable and terrestrial antenna reception
Supports with TV Stereo/SAP sound (BTSC, EIAJ, NICAM, or A2)
Video capture from Composite and S Video input
Full motion display 30fps @720x480-NTSC and 25fps @720x576-PAL
Provides the daily/weekly reservation-recording schedule
Time-shifting function, simultaneously watch and record the TV program with immediate replay and pause
Equalizes the waveform of the video signals, and reduces ghost (Optional)
High precision 3D Y/C separation and noise reduction by the three-dimension signal processing (Optional)
Provide the daily/weekly reservation-recording schedule
Time-shifting function, simultaneously watch and record the TV program with immediate replay and pause
Full function infrared remote control
"

I've just mistaken project profile with forum profile... The address is in place and correct

_________________
http://krashan.ppa.pl

Hi !
Until a few minutes ago, I was thinking that you could only add a single PCI *or* a single AGP board making the usage of a dedicated TV tuner card impossible if you wanted to use a Gfx card.
But while I'm reading again the specs, I'm not so sure.

In the Genesi's EFIKA specs, it's written :
PCI slot PCI2.2 compatible with an optional 90° AGP slot"

So is it possible to use both AGP *and* PCI at the same time ?

Because Neko said about having a gfx chip+a TV tuner : Neko, could you please clarify this for me ?
What exactly is this AGP slot then ? Is it exclusive or what ?
What I wanted to do at the begining was using an AGP gfx card + a PCI TV tuner card. So I ask again. Is it possible if the gfx card is AGP ?

Just a comment on the Open Graphics Project (which I happen to be a member of). They have samples of the initial first stage boards already in hand. Things are progressing rather well. I'd planned on bringing up some things in conjunction with the EFIKA boards anyhow


Thanks,

Jonathan Smith

Look at the pictures and work it out for yourself.
No. The AGP riser fits in the PCI slot. You can only have one device on that BUS unless it is bridged.

You can find "active" multi-slot PCI risers which have a bridge chip on them, which will work, but usually they face backwards away from the EFIKA so you lose your compact form factor. You would lose the ability to use AGP too as it would just become unweildy.

_________________
Matt Sealey

Mythtv can directly render the display information over the mpeg stream on the PVR 350 (and also on the "full featured" DVB cards) video output.

There is also a solution with using so called budget TV cards (the ones without MPEG2 decoder and video output):
-> An efika + gfx card for the frontend AND an efika + budget TV card for the backend

Last useable ivtv driver was 0.4.2.
In order to use this you're stick on an old 2.6.15 kernel! All newer releases including 0.8 refuse to work. If this isn't true please give some information on how to get 0.8 working (or send the required patches to the ivtv-devs ).
Are there low-profile hardware-en/decoding tv-cards btw?
Last but not least I can't wait to get efika in my hands
LET'S ROCK !

Two links for PCI riser cards with 3 PCI slot and a bridge chip onboard, the first in the USA and the second in Germany:
- http://store.orbitmicro.com/commerce/cc ... 266491.htm
- http://www.isp-proshop.de/trade/productview/578/125/

Both have the problem underlined by Neko: Then you may mount the AGP riser card on the uppermost PCI slot, but... what a strange case you would need!!!

Perhaps a solution could be this:
- mount a riser card with ribbon cable

- mount the riser card with 3 slots and bridge chip on it
- turn the second riser card 90 degrees clockwise
- (find a PCI VGA card for video)

Something like this: Problems I see:
- are the PCI lines too long?
- if a PCI card produces heat, it would try to flow upwards, towards the card producing it: not a good thing, even worse if you have a video card with a fan flowing the heat downwards; perhaps it could be mitigated turning the whole thing 90 degrees clockwise, with the 3 PCI slots standing as they were in a desktop PC and the Efika standing vertical with the network plug in the upper right corner

A very tall one at least.
Try and find it out for us. I'd love to know how it went. We won't condone using those cards as they are all rather dubious, electrically. A small kink in the cable and the PCI signal lengths won't match up. Then your card will act funny. A purely PCB based one will work fine, if it only has one slot (unbridged) or multiple slots with a bridge.

_________________
Matt Sealey

OK thanks for answering (anyway the "Look at the pictures and work it out for yourself" was not very kind of you). If I'm asking "and I think it was kindly and neutral", it's because the specs were not clear for me. I'm just trying to find out what extra hardware I will need with my EFIKA. Please by kinder next time

The Efika PCI slot looks reversed:


For example, if you insert a PCI network card, the connector would go to the opposite side of the Efika's connectors.
This would make the most common riser cards suitable to mount PCI cards over the Efika, not outwards.
Perhaps you would need a tall riser card, like this:

(you can find it here: http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=8#p1908)

Even this active (bridged) PCI card would fit well:


Perhaps you would not be able to use the lowest PCI slot, but you may try to use a PCI extender like this:

(a bigger image here:
http://www.mini-itx.it/images/product_i ... s/82_0.jpg)

The PCI cards would mount on top of the Efika, parallel to it and with connectors on the opposite side of the Efika's ones.

It's not, it's just keyed for 3.3V.

Make sure you plug your bridge cards in the right way around, okay?

_________________
Matt Sealey