Hi all

I've got a Phreeboard (Peg 1, April2) with the firmware from 20030323
or thereabouts (march 2003 sometime) and wondering if its the latest
one? Is there a later firmware upgrade for Peg I ? I ask because
although the machine works fine, it won't boot with a Connexant BT878
based TV tuner card installed in a PCI slot. I honestly don't know if
it is defective, I don't have a PeeCee up and running right now with
which I could test it.

Has anyone else had issues with these cards and a Peg I? I've seen
such a card running in a Peg once, at AmiWest, so I assume its
possible. But I could be wrong?

Thanks!

TronMan!!!

Hi there,

I'm afraid that you saw that card running on a Pegasos II, as (of what I read in previous threads), it's not possible to use a PCI TV Tuner along with an AGP GFX card on a Pegasos I, because of some bug or limitation with Mai's ArticiaS chip.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Fred

So, you're under the impression that people who are running this card
are using PCI display adapters to go with it? Crap! And me with only
AGP cards lying around.. I have a Voodoo3 (running now) and a Radeon
7500, I also think I could find a Radeon 7000 as well. I wonder if
that'd make a difference?

@Tronman

Unfortunately, I've never heard of anybody getting a TV Tuner working under Pegasos I. Maybe if the GFX Card & the TV Tuner are both PCI cards, then it *could* work, but in that area I'm no expert.

I hope that someone will be able to answer to this inquiry with more details.

Fred

Well, I made it 'working' on my AGP radeon 9k, but the TV picture was full of coloured trash... Which is probably the result of the broken Articia... The same card (Typhoon) works with Pegasos2 without any troubles with Visionary.

Bye, MarK.

@ MarK

Then I will rather have the Pegasos II's way of achieving AGP, than the "real" AGP provided by the Articia ...

:-P

Quote:

TV-card + AmigaOne works ... so it must be the Pegasos I that has a faulty design

I had it "working" with ATI 9000 AGP and a WinTV card. The quality was good but it freezes after some time. The same cards working perfect with Pegasos II. Tested with AmithlonTV.


Quote:

Please define works. You can watch TV or it will boot with a TV card inside?

@ hnl_dk

What TV card was that?

Does that particular TV card use PCI->AGP DMA to to copy the video data directly into the graphics display memory of the computer (bypassing the processor completely)?

I am probably quite clueless about this, but AFAIK, some TV cards need DMA ...

“The CX23880 captures and decodes all variations of NTSC, PAL, and SECAM video standards with a 10-bit video decoder that achieves Y/C separation with an adaptive comb filter, into digital red-green-blue (RGB) or YUV pixel streams for direct memory access (DMA) to the PC graphics video overlay or peripheral connected devices."
http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=112645

... while other TV-Cards require an IRQ and a memory range but *not* an I/O address or DMA channel. Many of the TV-Cards out there are based on Brooktree/Rockwell/Connexant chipset Bt848, Bt849, Bt878, Bt879, and AFAIU, those belong to the latter.

However, many of the major players in this field, like ATI, Matrox, 3Dfx, etc, use their own proprietary chipsets, and obviously some of them use real DMA.

Quote:

Yes it had (the Articia), but that was partly corrected with the April2 and completely removed in the Pegasos II!

You can watch TV on Pegasos 1 if you use a PCI GFX card. Maybe he means the same.

Quote:

One example ... Hercules SmartTV Stereo and ATI 9000 Pro (AGP) works on the AmigaOne of Bodie ... There are more examples.


about ATI ... ATI TV wonder VE does also work ...

Does it work correctly ? (ie.: using DMA and not the CPU to transfer the data)

If it doesn't make use of DMA, it's the same as on Pegasos... And that's not what they call "working"...

Regards,
Leo.

They are talking about Linux and a program called Zapping.


http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4842&forum=13

@ hnl_dk

AFAIK, the Hercules Smart TV uses the Bt878 chipset and does not use real DMA for the video stream? Also, AFAIK, the ATI All-in-wonder cards are a one-card solution, with the TV thing on the same physical board as the display memory of the graphics card = no data transfer on the bus at all?

Quote:
It is not an All-in-wonder ... it is a TV WONDER VE

Quote:

OK, I'm sorry (I read it fast and got stuck on the "wonder" part). But the question is if this card is using PCI->AGP DMA for its transfer? My quick guess (from a *quick* browse on various web pages) is that it is *not*.

But again, please note that I am no expert on these things. What I have written here and above is based on information I got from various websites, and my own ignorant analysis/synthesis.

Anyone: Feel free to dispute/correct me!

Quote:

It is a good question what is right or wrong ... some pages even say that the bt878 is able to use DMA, if it uses the right driver (or better if it does not use the wrong one)

Quote:

Just found out that the ATI TV WONDER VE is also using the bt878

The world is small

Hi, all!
I've still got a Peg1 with a AGP Radeon9000pro
and a (PCI)TerraTValue (BT878 chippie)....
It works very good on my linux (f.e. with xawtv)
and I even can record movies in VCD-quality....
But probably everything via cpu-power ?
bye
frostwork

@ Frostwork & hnl_dk

My belief is that the same cards working on the A1 with Linux will also work on the Peg1, and in the same way (no DMA). It would be interesting to test this. I still have a Peg1, but none of those cards.

Nah, I won't bother, it's a small issue anyway, because on Pegasos II *everything* works!

The linux drivers most likely transfer the bt878 data to memory first via pcidma and copy it to video memory later. This is completely unrelated to the Pegasos I problem which is caused by direct bt878->AGP video memory DMA transfer.

>I've got a Phreeboard (Peg 1, April2) with the firmware from 20030323

A small question by the way: aren't Phreeboards supposed to be April1/Pre-April boards only ?

That's what bbrv told me at least...

Leo.

I recall few lucky ####s got April 2 board.

Hell, it is soon one year when I was accepted to PhreeBoard program and got my board

I did it

Voodoo3 3000 PCI + winTV Haupauge.
Unfortunatly, only on PAL. I'm french and would have SECAM color mode.

Serge

How can you tell an april1 from april2? By looking at the motherboard?