API's and hardware communication. Newbie

[Diez B. Roggisch]

> 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.
> 
> 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?

I can't comment on DVB-cards, but I have accessed a webcam under linux., 
in pure python.

Even if you need *some* parts written in C for that (which might not 
even be the case), you should check if there isn't some library 
available that you can access using e.g. ctypes.

Diez