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Drivers Applications Downloads Links DVB drivers Older versions Patches by Rolf Siebrecht Card detection problems

Linux support for DVB receiver cards has been implemented by Marcus and Ralf Metzler and Convergence Media GmbH with the help of Siemens who released the specs. Fortunately for Linux developers, all DVB related standards are OPEN.      Currently the DVB driver supports a wide range of DVB cards, for satellite and terrestrial digital tv reception. Not sure if some analog satellite receivers are also supported.      Latest version of the drivers can be found at http://www.linuxtv.org/download/dvb/, also earlier versions, dvbd for Sat-IP services and the DVB-API documentation for application writers. GENERATIONS AND BRANCHES drivers before v0.8.2 are considered obsolete and won't be covered here drivers v0.8.2 is the last release of it's generation and can satisfy Sat-IP users very well and also FTA TV viewers. Uses for v0.8.2 FTA digital TV & radio (gVideo, tuxzap, VDR-0.72, etc) Sat-IP services like EON, OpenSky, NetSystem, Xantic, Starspeeder, etc. Multicast IP data reception - EON's FAZZT service Multicast IP video broadcast reception - EON's MPEG4 video streams Video recording with VDR Video retransmission over network with dvbstream Further development of the 0.8.2 generation by it's authors has stopped. drivers v0.8.2-patch-level-8 is a branch of the 0.8.2 generation improved with bugfixes, new features, improved performance and resource management, autodetection of cards, automatic module loading with modprobe. This branch has been created and is maintaind by Rolf Siebrecht. Until recently multicast wasn't supported, so Sat-IP+multicast users had to stay with the 0.8.2 drivers and dvbd. dvbd still doesn't support the new API's in the 0.9 drivers, so using it for multicast is not possible yet. drivers v0.9.x are the next generation with a new, improved API, new features, better support for recording and using CAM for encrypted channels. MPEG data processing, network interface support have changed considerably from the previous generation, so: Sat-IP related applications that work under 0.8.2 drivers won't work and viceversa Tuning API using /dev/video from 0.8.2 drivers no longer works Latest driver redefines the DVB API again, so most older app that use the /dev/ost API may brake. NORMAL USE OF A DVB CARD FROM LINUX Watch digital TV broadcast via satellite (or terrestrial with DVB-T cards) Using a Sat-IP provider for low cost, asymmetrical, fast Internet downloads. Record video as it is received for later viewing or recompression for storage. NEAT THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH A DVB CARD Resend video data received by the card over a LAN via multicast for clients on other computers to receive and watch using either a software player or a DVB card View images via the DVB card, on a TV set if the card has an analog output. Watch DivX movies with video decoding done by the DVB card's hardware (audio still decoded by software and audio card needed)