[pvrusb2] PAL-Plus support

[Mike Isely]

On Fri, 7 Nov 2008, Carsten Meier wrote:

> Am Fri, 7 Nov 2008 09:35:42 -0600 (CST)
> schrieb Mike Isely <isely at isely.net>:
> 
> > On Fri, 7 Nov 2008, Carsten Meier wrote:
> > 
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I think you misunderstood me a little bit. Just to be sure we're
> > > talking about the same thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palplus .
> > > I know, that my PVRUSB2 doesn't have any decoder-hardware.
> > > 
> > > To assemble a true 16:9-picture of a PALPlus-broacast, only the
> > > lines hidden in the black letterbox-bars have to be reinserted into
> > > the picture. Can that be done with the PVRUSB2?
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > > Carsten
> > 
> > This sounds like you are talking about what would otherwise by a
> > normal broadcast but in anamorphic format.  In that case the thing
> > that "adds" the "black bars" would be the device that actually
> > displays the image, not the mpeg encoder.
> 
> No... come on guys, read the wikipedia-article. A PALplus picture
> starts as an anamorphic picture (to take advantage of the full
> line-count), then every 4th line gets dropped to restore the aspect
> ratio for non-palplus-devices. The dropped lines are transmitted hidden
> (don't know how they are hidden) in the black bars on the top and the
> bottom of the picture. A PALplus-decoder gets those hidden lines and
> reinserts them into the picture so that you end up with an anamorphic
> picture which can then be viewed as 16:9 with full line-count.
> 
> To non-palplus-devices the picture looks like a normal 4:3 letterboxed
> picture (but it actually isn't)

My gut feeling right now is that there is little chance that the pvrusb2 
driver could ever support this.  And even if it were possible, there's 
no way I could debug it in here in the USA since I don't have access to 
any such signal source.

  -Mike


-- 

Mike Isely
isely @ pobox (dot) com
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