API's and hardware communication. Newbie

[Grant Edwards]

On 2008-04-26, Grayham <no at spam.com> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I am new to this group so 'Hello All'
>
> I have a PC which is running linux and in it have installed a digital
> satellite card. I would like to write some software to access the card,
> tune it and bring back video. Basically a home brew DVB-s application.
>
> Being a non/new programmer (apart from some basic too many years ago) I
> decided to teach my self Python as from what i have read it's an easy and
> powerfull language to learn. I have been at it a few weeks and am getting
> on OK and finding it reasonably OK to pick up.
>
> The problem is i can find little to no information on programming for DVB
> cards or on how to access the Linux tv API in Python but I can find lots of
> information in C. This is making me think should i bother with Python and
> just learn C even though this will probably take a lot longer.

There are a couple of ways you can handle the problem:

 * You can use the ctypes modules to make C library calls. At
   first it seems a bit complicated, but it's really quite easy
   to use.  http://docs.python.org/lib/module-ctypes.html

 * You can write a C wrapper for the library so that it can be
   accessed as a Python module.  That's going to require a bit
   more C knowlege than the ctypes approach , but it's not as
   difficult as it looks.  http://www.python.org/doc/ext/intro.html

> Can some one help me or point me at a resource somewhere or
> would it be best to just learn C instead.  
>
> I am aware this is a complicated little project for someone
> just starting out but it will be a multifaceted program with
> loads of interesting classes, functions and loops and i don't
> have to start with the really difficult stuff first. I just
> want to know if it's possible under python to access the DVB
> card and if so how?


Freevo is a DVR system written in Python, so that might be a
good place to look: http://doc.freevo.org/

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! I guess you guys got
                                  at               BIG MUSCLES from doing too
                               visi.com            much STUDYING!