Slashdot Mirror


Reverse Engineering an MPEG Driver

An anonymous reader writes "Following on from the recent spate of reverse engineering articles, there is an interesting summary of the reverse engineering of a binary only Linux driver. The driver is for the integrated MPEG decoder on VIA's popular EPIA-M boards. At the moment VIA has not publicly released the source code for the MPEG chipset on these boards and will only make the code available under NDA saying that "Typically, only requests from companies developing product for sale will be approved." As a result this is holding back development of open source tools (e.g. xine, mplayer, vdr) that would be able to make use of the interesting hardware on these boards."

8 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. GNAA takes the lead! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    yeah, fuck the rest

  2. Yes but Scott Lockwood is still a fat fuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Someone should reverse engineer him some weighloss pills or something.

  3. Boycott OSS drivers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Driver coding should be done by paid professionals, not by hobbyists doing in their spare time after getting off of work at McDonalds.

  4. GNAA Falters--JOIN BPAA TO RUN WITH THE CHAMPS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Join BPAA Today!

    BPAA (BISEXUAL POLYNESIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers BISEXUAL POLYNESIANS from all over America and abroad for one common goal: Being BISEXUAL POLYNESIANS.

    Are you BISEXUAL?
    Are you a POLYNESIAN?
    Are you a BISEXUAL POLYNESIAN?

    If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then BPAA (BISEXUAL POLYNESIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for! Join BPAA (BISEXUAL POLYNESIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time BPAA member.
    BPAA (BISEXUAL POLYNESIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing BISEXUAL POLYNESIAN community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America. You, too, can be a part of BPAA if you join today!

    Why not? It's quick and easy--only 2 simple steps!

    Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

    If you are having trouble locating #BPAA, the official BISEXUAL POLYNESIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.

    If you have mod points and would like to support BPAA, please moderate this post up.

    This post brought to you by a proud member of BPAA

    ` __________________________________________________ ______
    | ______________________________________._a,________ _____ |
    | _________________________aj#0s_____aWY!400._______ _____ |
    | __ad#7!!*P_____.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#_______ _____ |
    | _j#'___0#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_____ _____ |
    | _"#g____01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_____ _____ |
    | __oe__tyugk____*@`gpdNl_______-!^_________________ _____ |
    | ___lkp____ghq___pTW_______________________________ _____ |
    | ____mw_____ff___oef_______________________________ _____ |
    | _____er__ww_______________________________________ _____ |
    | ______xde___BISEXUAL_POLYNESIAN_ASSOCIATION_OF_AME RICA_ |
    | __________________________________________________ _____ |
    ` __________________________________________________ ______'

    bpaa representative #648437

  5. Re:why hardware decoder? by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    "With the ever-increasing clock speed of our CPUs, what is the point of having a hardware MPEG decoder?"

    Linux is a multi-tasking OS, right?

  6. So why let him fuck you then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll


    So why let him fuck you then? Mm? Pull up the pants and run away.

  7. in Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    programmers cleaned their rooms themselves *g* (couldn't resist).

    You are talking legal stuff, using terms fitting for bio-tech or genetics and finally imply that a single person could not reverse engineer anything. thus I think your argumentation is flawed.

    Furthermore, I do understand RE as a process of looking at something (existing) until you understand it so well, that you can rebuilt it on your own. A true scientist might stop here (a solution to the problem exists) and look for a new challenge, others decide (for various reasons) to create a more evident 'proof' (implementation).