[mythtv-users] Cheap PVR350 Card?

[Steve Dobson]

Dave

On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 10:33:16AM -0700, David Huseby wrote:
> The new EPIA-M boards have built-in MPEG2 hardware decoder.  Does
> anybody know if it is supported under Linux?  I've been considering the
> EPIA-M for my front-end hardware but I want to make sure that I don't
> also have to buy an MPEG2 decoder card such as a 350 to make it work.

The simple answer is yes, but it isn't quite that easy.  The source code
from VIA is only available to large OEMs, so it is not in the public 
domain.  This is a bad thing, as Alan Cox pointed out to me a few years
back after the Linux show in London.  The problem is that you become 
completely dependant on the manufacture.  VIA only support some Linux
distros (RedHat is supported, Debian is not), so what do you do if your
distro is not supported.

The other problem is that the Linux Kernel Hackers will not consider the
needs of drivers who's source is not in the kernel tree -- and why should
they?  So the next version of Linux may be less supportive of the VIAs
IO needs and the driver maybe take longer to develop and be more buggy.

If your thinking of using one of the new VIA boards then write to VIA
and say your thinking of using one of there systems by only if the code
is in the public domain - say you want to use it on a distro that they
don't support, or you need to build a custom kernel, and you don't want
to be trapped with no upgrade support if VIA decide to stop the Linux
development.  If enough people write in saying they'll use brand-X
rather than VIA because all it's hardware is supported by public domain
software then many VIA will see that it is in their best intrests to
publish.

Having said all that I did find this site http://www.ivor.it/cle266/
where Ivor is writing support for the MPEG chips.

Steve