[Discuss-gnuradio] HDTV decoder card avail for Linux

[John Gilmore]

http://www.pchdtv.com/

The board costs $189.  It contains a TV tuner and uses the Oren
Semiconductor OR51211 chip to digitize and process the signal.  I
haven't found that data sheet yet, but the OR51210 "Digital VSB
Demodulator" data sheet is at:

  http://www.oren.com/pdf/OR51210DataSheet.pdf

It shows at the bottom of page 7 that there's a test mode which
outputs the signal after the equalizer, rather than after full ATSC
demodulation and error correction.  This might enable the card to be
used in GNU Radio (arbitrary demodulation) applications.  It also says
that the 51210 is very compatible with the 51211.

The chip has an internal DSP which you load about 10K bytes of
microcode for.  They have various microcode loads you can use, but
they say you can't program it yourself...right.

If the folks at Oren or pchdtv.com wanted to help, it would probably
be pretty quick to see if this board can actually be used for any GNU
Radio applications.  Using this board has the advantage that all the
drivers and apps are open source.

        John