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Creative Labs GPLs dxr2 DVD Decoder Drivers
The Dakota Kidd writes "Just saw this on Linuxgames today - Creative has released the drivers for their dxr2 DVD decoder card. It isn't listed yet on Creative's Open Source page but it is in the CVS repository. " Kinda lost in the excitment of their open sourcing the drivers for SB Live!, but yet more good news on the hardware support front.Credit where it's due: Andrew deQuincey and Lucien Murray-Pitts actually wrote the code - it's nice to be able to get it now.
I dislike this. Creative is taking the Fame for this Driver and is using it for their own public relations.
To clarify: This driver was not written by Creative. In fact its creation wasn't even supported by Creative with information about the hardware. I mailed with the author and he had to find out all informations by himself either by reference manuals or reverse engineering.
Now all Creative did was adding their Copyright messages (what a laugh!) and making the driver public available via their server. And they cheated the programmers again, as they made it available on their CVS without telling them how to access it, or even that the published it. When i mailed the author about this, he just didn't knew, that the driver where available in public.
Sorry, but if this is the way Creative wants to go in future for Linux "Support" i won't recommend buying their products.
And now for some clarification about the driver: As creative didn't helped the driver is still unstable and without many features. And the main parts of DVD (the navigation) are not contained. You may now play a VOB-File from the Disc (if the file is not encrypted). But you are missing all the DVD features, and if there are some extras mixed in one file, you will have to play them sequentially.
It is not very likely, that DVD navigation will be supported very soon, as the DVD forum has maked this a closed standard, which you have to pay for access and even sign a NDA.
So this driver is a first step, but will not really be helpful for dvd playing.
The only one who may help is Creative, as they have signed the NDA and have the standards. They would need to release a (binary-only) module for navigation and other issues. But if they continue to use other peoples work without doing anything thereselfs, this is not to be awaited.
In short: There is no fame which Creative can take for this driver. The haven't done anything and they even didn't show the willingness to do something in the future. This may change, but in the moment it doesn't look like.
If you want to watch DVD on Linux you better stick with a company which is truly supporting linux on their products. For example the guys from linuxtv.org/convergence.de will have a dvd decoder card for linux very likely till the end of this year in production. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, i just know them from the livid mailinglist. But they are truly supporting linux and not just taking other peoples work. So support them!
Anybody got a "fe-sure" on if encrypted DVDs work or not? I'd love to plop in my new bubblegum crisis dvd tonight, but I'd REALLY love to watch it under Linux.
-- I'm omnipotent, I just don't care.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
You want technical?
... the cable going into the DVD card has this data and it is then passed through to the monitor untouched 99% of the time (depending on how often you watch DVD movies that is).
...
... assuming you're full-screen (or else there won't be enough data for multisync monitors).
;)
Video card produces a stream of data at a certain pair of frequencies for V/Hsync
If you're watching a DVD movie, that section of the screen is rendered blue by the video card (as per the instructions of the software). The DVD card, being synchronized to the current V/Hsync of the video card (done at initialization for each resolution) produces data for the DVD image at the points where the data for the blue signal from the video card are
Video output = V
DVD output = D
Video DVD Combined
VVVVV DDD VVDDD
VVVVV DDD VVDDD
VVVVV DDD VVDDD
VVVVV VVVVV
The video signal is being mutated by the DVD card in one sense, but the DVD output of the DXR2 card is not affected one bit. If you think it is, you're crazy. If you want proof, just unhook your video card from the DVD card while its running a movie (not recommended!) and the picture will stay
Have a great day
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I hate to burst your bubble but you are wrong. The dxr2 does CSS completely in hardware so the "CSS leak" (which happened quite some time ago btw) has nothing at all to do with it. The dxr3 does CSS in software which is probally why we are only seeing dxr2 at the moment.
Also, please read the post in the future, maybe notice the link to the drivers given in the source. Creative already released the source, and I've already got it working on my system (for un-encrypted DVDs, haven't tried it with encrypted ones yet).
-matt
The DxR2 is a decent card, but it's biggest problem is that it shoves the video through an analog VGA cable to overlay onto your video card. The picture is better than Television, but not as good as the software based DVD playback I've seen.
/through/ the system bus (PCI) and write it directly into the frame buffer on the video card? If so, this would be the best of both worlds. If not currently, would this even be possible? I'd sure like to see the drivers setup to work this way for this card.
Does anyone know if there's a way to send the video from the Dxr2
A couple of other interesting points:
:)
This driver requires microcode from the Windows version of the drivers. (Just copy over a file called dvd1.ux) I guess that's a way to protect all those if-we-told-ya-we'd-have-ta-kill-ya hardware-level trade secrets?
Also, as I understand it, these were *not* developed *by* Creative, although Creative has given them their blessing. Hopefully the authors will pay us a visit and tell the story of how they came to be.
If you're interested, here's the first part of the readme:
The version of the drivers on creative's web page aren't the most recent. The most recent version can be found here:
://livid.on.openprojects.net/pipermail/livid-dev/1 999-November/000770.html
http://www.geocities.com/dxr2linux
Al so take a look at the developers message on the livid mailing list:
http
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
Andrew deQuincey and myself (Lucien Murray-Pitts) are the co-developers of the DXR2 card. The card, atm, only plays MPG streams via the TV OUT. We've not tackled the overlay yet. The card supports HARDWARE CSS and Andrew is working on it atm. THIS IS A DRIVER and as such DOES NOT implement any sort of player. It takes the stream given to it and pushes it to the card. This IS akin to the Creative Labs Windows drivers - even they have a seperate app. to play the DVD/VCD. Anyone wanting to contribute $5,000 so we can buy the DVD Format Books is very welcome to send us the cash ;-) Yours, Andrew & Lucien
Read the true story over here.. the only thing with holding Enigma from opening up their sources is.. CVS!- August/000147.html
http://l ivid.on.openprojects.net/pipermail/livid-dev/1999
CVS is preventing them from releasing their hardware specs and Linux sources!
It does work, a bit. I managed to get my system to play back dvds over my tv tuner. I don't know how sound works because my cd audio doesn't work right under linux to begin with. Video looks good, but it's extremely jumpy. Not entirely certain why. Also, I had to change the source of PAL to NTSC in test.c before I could get everything working right (but that's an issue with my tv tuner not the card I think). Has anyone else noticed jumpiness or is it just me? Also, creative doesn't have bugzilla going for Dxr2 yet :(.
-matt
>I wonder how long till these drivers will be
>able to run DVD's fullscreen on a K6-2 300
>with good framerates?
As this driver is for a hardware decoder, the framerate and fullscreen doesn't have to do anything with your processor speed.
>Once it can do this then I will buy me a Creative >Labs DVD drive....
Don't do it. This driver is for the DXR2 Kit, but this is no longer for sale for some time now. They are selling now the DXR3 Kit which has totally different hardware and can therefore not be used with this driver.
I personally won't recommend buying anything from Creative again. This driver was not written neither was the development supported by Creative. The author found all internals out by reverse-engineering. All what Creative did was putting their Copyright remarks into the files and making the driver available through their servers.