Make a complete stand-alone DVB-S or DVB-T modulator using Raspberry Pi and its embeded camera to feed and external modulator (Digilite, Hides DVB-T...).
Description is on http://www.vivadatv.org/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=293
73's Evariste F5OEO
Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC required
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This forum is run by the BATC (British Amateur Television Club), it is service made freely available to all interested parties, please do not abuse this privilege.
Thank you
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
Well done. Considering the cost of the Hides TX only dongle is only US$170, your system makes for a very inexpensive DVB-T TX.
The Raspberry PI has an amazing video capability for such a low price.
I am surprised so few have commented on your project. It is very novel.
Regards Drew VK4ZXI
http://vk4zxi.blogspot.com.au/
The Raspberry PI has an amazing video capability for such a low price.
I am surprised so few have commented on your project. It is very novel.
Regards Drew VK4ZXI
http://vk4zxi.blogspot.com.au/
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
Hello Evariste,
Nice to see you have managed to get it to work, that should save me some effort!
What are you using for sound? I plan on using the Wolfson PI sound board.
Hopefully it won't be long until I have the TS input version of DATV-Express
finished. Then we can try the two together.
I am hoping to have something ready for the Dayton Hamvention but time is
running out.
- Charles G4GUO
Nice to see you have managed to get it to work, that should save me some effort!
What are you using for sound? I plan on using the Wolfson PI sound board.
Hopefully it won't be long until I have the TS input version of DATV-Express
finished. Then we can try the two together.
I am hoping to have something ready for the Dayton Hamvention but time is
running out.
- Charles G4GUO
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
Thanks for the feedback Drew...I hope that this solution could be a good base to OM's experimentations. I have now to clean up all my development file architecture and make a SD image which will be easily replicated even by none linux guru !
Charles, I hope that it could save you time, because even the script and method seem simple, I spend hours to find the right tool to do it (specially a good TS encapsulator). Right now, I do not use sound input and Wolfson could be a solution or maybe a very cheap USB audio card.
I think that with scripts install and if the USB flow control is done by the FTD2232h driver, writing directly to /dev/ttyUSB0 should work. You need however to set the config of the DATV express.
73's Evariste F5OEO
Charles, I hope that it could save you time, because even the script and method seem simple, I spend hours to find the right tool to do it (specially a good TS encapsulator). Right now, I do not use sound input and Wolfson could be a solution or maybe a very cheap USB audio card.
I think that with scripts install and if the USB flow control is done by the FTD2232h driver, writing directly to /dev/ttyUSB0 should work. You need however to set the config of the DATV express.
73's Evariste F5OEO
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
Hello Evariste,
DATV-Express uses a Cypress Device for USB2 however I have compiled the control code
and that runs on a PI using libusb so there will be no problem.
As far as audio is concerned I expect there will be enough spare capacity to do the
encoding on the ARM using avconv or ffmpeg.
Also I need to look at using the PI as a receiver. It is all a matter of finding
enough hours in the day to do all this.
It is a shame that there are not more software developers interested in DATV
because DATV is 95% software.
Still if we can make some nice toys it might encourage youngsters to get interested.
- Charles
DATV-Express uses a Cypress Device for USB2 however I have compiled the control code
and that runs on a PI using libusb so there will be no problem.
As far as audio is concerned I expect there will be enough spare capacity to do the
encoding on the ARM using avconv or ffmpeg.
Also I need to look at using the PI as a receiver. It is all a matter of finding
enough hours in the day to do all this.
It is a shame that there are not more software developers interested in DATV
because DATV is 95% software.
Still if we can make some nice toys it might encourage youngsters to get interested.
- Charles
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
Hi Charles,
CPU used for the complete process video takes around 15% CPU , so I guess that even sound will be encoded in software, it should work without problem.
I made also some test with USB Technisat DVB-S receiver : it works ! Morevover, on the same RPI, I encode and modulate to digilite and by pluging antenna out of the digilite to input of the technisat I could receive and decode it on the screen. It takes around 25% for the whole process. It means that the RPI is became a transceiver and can also act as a relay with video processing (idea could be to transcode incoming TS in a lower bitrate in order to make a multiple program output.
I agree that 95% of DATV processing is now software, and could stop a lot of OM's. I hope to furnished a easy way to test DATV without software knowledge by presenting it as graphical blocks. It will still allow some experiment. I think also that youngsters developpers could be interest in radio (even they do not know about radio and electronic): thus the OM's world will become a "good" team learning from each other, but is surely an other subject.
My development is done on a 16GB SD, so I could duplicate it easily right now, before cleaning it and reduce the size to fit a 4GB SD. Let me know If there is immediate interest.
73's Evariste F5OEO
CPU used for the complete process video takes around 15% CPU , so I guess that even sound will be encoded in software, it should work without problem.
I made also some test with USB Technisat DVB-S receiver : it works ! Morevover, on the same RPI, I encode and modulate to digilite and by pluging antenna out of the digilite to input of the technisat I could receive and decode it on the screen. It takes around 25% for the whole process. It means that the RPI is became a transceiver and can also act as a relay with video processing (idea could be to transcode incoming TS in a lower bitrate in order to make a multiple program output.
I agree that 95% of DATV processing is now software, and could stop a lot of OM's. I hope to furnished a easy way to test DATV without software knowledge by presenting it as graphical blocks. It will still allow some experiment. I think also that youngsters developpers could be interest in radio (even they do not know about radio and electronic): thus the OM's world will become a "good" team learning from each other, but is surely an other subject.
My development is done on a 16GB SD, so I could duplicate it easily right now, before cleaning it and reduce the size to fit a 4GB SD. Let me know If there is immediate interest.
73's Evariste F5OEO
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
Hi all - great sounding work - always wondered about the MP4 encode capabilities of the PI (unfortunately beyond me as I'm no software guru). On the second point, An old record, or edit of it springs to mind : INTERNET killed the radiostar ....G4GUO wrote:It is a shame that there are not more software developers interested in DATV
because DATV is 95% software.
Still if we can make some nice toys it might encourage youngsters to get interested.
- Charles
some truth there I suspect.73s
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
I read on the PI blog that they now have the MP4 encoder running at 90 fps.
There is quite a nice video of someone juggling clubs played back in slow motion
on the blog too.
There is nothing clever about writing software it is just very very time consuming.
Normal people might have nightmares, we dream in loops.
- Charles
There is quite a nice video of someone juggling clubs played back in slow motion
on the blog too.
There is nothing clever about writing software it is just very very time consuming.
Normal people might have nightmares, we dream in loops.
- Charles
Re: Using Raspberry PI to feed a DATV modulator – no PC requ
SD image is now ready : http://f5oeo.fr/DATVRPI0.1.rar
Hardware needed :
- Raspberry Pi Model B
- Raspberry CAM
- SD CARD al least 4GB
Modulator :
DVB-T modulator (Hides model UT 100C for example)
or
Digilite or DigiliteZL
Installation :
Write DATVRPI0.1.img on SD using DiskImager
Insert SD in Raspberry
Run ./DATVRelease/Digilite/EncodeToDigilite.sh
That's it !!! You have a stand-alone camera/encoder/modulator
I also add all the drivers for USB DVB receivers which allows using DVBTools to receive at the same time DVB-S or DVB-T.
More explanation for setup at
http://www.vivadatv.org/viewtopic.php?f ... p=802#p802
Hardware needed :
- Raspberry Pi Model B
- Raspberry CAM
- SD CARD al least 4GB
Modulator :
DVB-T modulator (Hides model UT 100C for example)
or
Digilite or DigiliteZL
Installation :
Write DATVRPI0.1.img on SD using DiskImager
Insert SD in Raspberry
Run ./DATVRelease/Digilite/EncodeToDigilite.sh
That's it !!! You have a stand-alone camera/encoder/modulator
I also add all the drivers for USB DVB receivers which allows using DVBTools to receive at the same time DVB-S or DVB-T.
More explanation for setup at
http://www.vivadatv.org/viewtopic.php?f ... p=802#p802