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authorMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>2017-08-30 05:25:20 -0400
committerMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>2017-09-05 05:52:12 -0400
commit192f8bc1338318b8967199cda26517a589d277f0 (patch)
tree333492b1cec48f218ab6154d36c3fbde22309328 /Documentation/media
parent9a9bf23089d8a36ad6c4604ba6821d7906e4b80e (diff)
media: dvb/intro: adjust the notices about optional hardware
Both CA and decoders are optional. Also, the presence or absence has nothing to do on being a PCI card or not. Nowadays, most hardware leaves the decoders to either the GPU or to some ISP inside the SoC, instead of implementing it inside the Digital TV part of the device. So, change the wording to reflect the hardware changes. Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/media')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/media/uapi/dvb/intro.rst29
1 files changed, 17 insertions, 12 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/media/uapi/dvb/intro.rst b/Documentation/media/uapi/dvb/intro.rst
index 4e1594816ef4..aeafc9ab96c1 100644
--- a/Documentation/media/uapi/dvb/intro.rst
+++ b/Documentation/media/uapi/dvb/intro.rst
@@ -71,8 +71,7 @@ Overview
A Digital TV card or set-top-box (STB) usually consists of the
following main hardware components:
-- Frontend consisting of tuner and digital TV demodulator
-
+Frontend consisting of tuner and digital TV demodulator
Here the raw signal reaches the digital TV hardware from a satellite dish or
antenna or directly from cable. The frontend down-converts and
demodulates this signal into an MPEG transport stream (TS). In case
@@ -80,34 +79,40 @@ following main hardware components:
equipment control (SEC), which allows control of LNB polarization,
multi feed switches or dish rotors.
-- Conditional Access (CA) hardware like CI adapters and smartcard slots
-
+Conditional Access (CA) hardware like CI adapters and smartcard slots
The complete TS is passed through the CA hardware. Programs to which
the user has access (controlled by the smart card) are decoded in
real time and re-inserted into the TS.
-- Demultiplexer which filters the incoming DVB stream
+ .. note::
+ Not every digital TV hardware provides conditional access hardware.
+
+Demultiplexer which filters the incoming DVB stream
The demultiplexer splits the TS into its components like audio and
video streams. Besides usually several of such audio and video
streams it also contains data streams with information about the
programs offered in this or other streams of the same provider.
-- MPEG2 audio and video decoder
-
+MPEG2 audio and video decoder
The main targets of the demultiplexer are the MPEG2 audio and video
decoders. After decoding they pass on the uncompressed audio and
video to the computer screen or (through a PAL/NTSC encoder) to a TV
set.
+ .. note::
+
+ Modern hardware usually doesn't have a separate decoder hardware, as
+ such functionality can be provided by the main CPU, by the graphics
+ adapter of the system or by a signal processing hardware embedded on
+ a Systems on a Chip (SoC) integrated circuit.
+
+ It may also not be needed for certain usages (e.g. for data-only
+ uses like “internet over satellite”).
+
:ref:`stb_components` shows a crude schematic of the control and data
flow between those components.
-On a DVB PCI card not all of these have to be present since some
-functionality can be provided by the main CPU of the PC (e.g. MPEG
-picture and sound decoding) or is not needed (e.g. for data-only uses
-like “internet over satellite”). Also not every card or STB provides
-conditional access hardware.
.. _dvb_devices: