Developing DVB applications

[adriano]

Hi all!

I just encountered MediaPortal, in my opinion a great piece of software! And this made me curious about how one can start with the programming of a tool like this. I am quite familiar with programming Java, but i am really interested in C++ or C# in relation with digital TV, perhaps i could also provide some help to this project in the future.
So i would be very pleased if somebody could tell me about tutorials, like communicating with a DVB-T card and getting some basic information like Service Information, next Events etc.
I have also had a first glance at the mediaportal sources but it is really a huge project, so for the start i am looking for something easier to get into the subject.

Thanks in advance!

[CHli]

As I know, that's the way it works :

MediaPortal is based on Microsoft DirectShow technologies + the Stream Buffer Engine which is used for TimeShifting.

DirectShow is the most up-to-date way in Windows SDK to display, process, listen to music, video, pictures, etc. DirectShow is using what we call a graph which is composed of multiple filters which are interconnected using pins. Each pin of each filter knows on which other pin it can be connected or not and what kind of informations are send on the pin.

There are grabbing filters which can read files, capture stream from a tuner card, basically a source for informations. There are processing filters which convert the stream, split-it in multiple streams and so on. And of course rendering filters which display, play, the result stream.

When you want to use informations coming from a DVB card, you don't communicate directly with the card to grab EPG and to get the video stream, the DirectShow filter included with the card's drivers grab the informations and send them to the rest of the DirectShow graph. If you want to use these data you have to develop a DirectShow filter which uses these informations to store or display them.