1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
3 Digital TV (DVB) devices
4 ------------------------
6 Digital TV devices are implemented by several different drivers:
8 - A bridge driver that is responsible to talk with the bus where the other
9 devices are connected (PCI, USB, SPI), bind to the other drivers and
10 implement the digital demux logic (either in software or in hardware);
12 - Frontend drivers that are usually implemented as two separate drivers:
14 - A tuner driver that implements the logic which commands the part of
15 the hardware responsible for tuning into a digital TV transponder or
16 physical channel. The output of a tuner is usually a baseband or
17 Intermediate Frequency (IF) signal;
19 - A demodulator driver (a.k.a "demod") that implements the logic which
20 commands the digital TV decoding hardware. The output of a demod is
21 a digital stream, with multiple audio, video and data channels typically
22 multiplexed using MPEG Transport Stream [#f1]_.
24 On most hardware, the frontend drivers talk with the bridge driver using an
27 .. [#f1] Some standards use TCP/IP for multiplexing data, like DVB-H (an
28 abandoned standard, not used anymore) and ATSC version 3.0 current
29 proposals. Currently, the DVB subsystem doesn't implement those standards.