• Fix a bug reported when using Hauppauge PVR-150 units with composite video cameras
• Allow the PID settings for VIDEO and PCR to have independent values
• Allow all DVB-S-protocol-encoding to be performed by FPGA
Currently, Ken W6HHC is alpha testing the v2.02 changes… Plans are to post the software update on the http://www.DATV-Express.com website for downloading as soon as testing is completed.
Art WA8RMC demonstrated the DATV-Express board with his notebook computer at the Dayton HamVention in May. Art ran the demo all weekend at the combined booth for the ATCO club and ATN (Amateur Television Network).
Art (not shown) ran DATV-Express demo in ATCO/ATN booth
in Dayton with Mike WA6SVT (on left) and Gary W6KVC
Ken W6HHC demonstrated the DATV-Express board with his MK802iv “micro-PC” running PicUntu linux at the Orange County ARC meeting in May.
Ken W6HHC demonstrates DATV-Express being driven
by MK802iv “micro-PC” at OCARC
The first goal for the DATV-Express Project team was "to release the board and software to run on a full size ubuntu-PC". This goal is completed. The second goal for the DATV-Express Project team, "to replace the full size ubuntu-PC for DVB-S with something more portable CPU like Raspberry PI or MK802iv", has been very difficult so far. During April the team reported that the single-core-ARM Raspberry PI did not seem to have enough CPU horsepower and was abandoned. During May testing the team ran into two problems with using the quadcore-ARM MK802iv for the project.
First, Charles G4GUO had difficulty compiling two of the main linux-flavors used with the MK802iv “micro-PC”…PicUntu and Lubuntu. Both PicUntu and Lubuntu have the kernel source code available, but do not compile because dependencies seem to be missing from the source repositories. Charles explains that we could use PicUntu with the MK802iv (it does work) but we would never be able to add new device drivers in the future if we can’t compile the OS. Finally, PicUntu and Lubuntu are based on old kernels and as we have decided to use something else (see ODROID discussions below) there is little point in trying to sort the compilation out.
Second, Ken ordered a second MK802iv from Amazon to get it ready to demo in Dayton. The second unit had a problem of a “flickering display” as soon as it was flashed with the PicUntu OS. The second unit was returned to Amazon and a third unit was obtained and also had the same “flickering display” problem. So the third unit was returned to Amazon and a fourth unit was obtained….and worked perfectly. At present three MK802iv units with manufacturing serial numbers in 2014 work fine, and two units with serial numbers of 201310 and 201312 demonstrated this “flickering display” problem. The team does not understand what the root-cause of this display problem is. Ken also flashed with ubuntu-for-MK802iv at two different display resolutions, but this did not solve anything and we still saw the problem. I want to add a kind word for Amazon and their return policies (aka RMA). Amazon made it fast and painless to return a defective unit(s)…no questions asked.
The main concern now is that the MK802iv unit may not have enough open-source software support to make it the project’s reference “micro-PC” computer? There is a third choice, called ODROID model U3 that appears to have much better software support. The price is in the same class as MK802iv, $65 without any case or cables and the ODROID-U3 contains a quadcore-ARM…so it has plenty of CPU horsepower. The current problem with evaluating the ODROID-U3 is that it is currently out of stock and not expected to ship again until July.
The project team now has to wait until July until the ODROID-U3 becomes available to order and then test. Ken will then begin writing a new User guide for ODROID (maybe in September) that is needed before the software for ODROID-U3 could be released to hams.
“moderate speed ahead”…de Ken W6HHC