Commit 1e1d9c96 authored by Mauro Carvalho Chehab's avatar Mauro Carvalho Chehab
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media: dvbproperty.rst: improve notes about legacy frontend calls



The description of the DVBv5 API was written a long time ago,
where the API was still new, and there were not apps using it.

Now that the API is stable and used by new applications, clarify
that DVBv3 calls should not be used and why.

Signed-off-by: default avatarMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>
parent e9dc0f82
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@@ -12,24 +12,35 @@ antenna subsystem via Satellite Equipment Control (SEC), on satellite
systems. The actual parameters are specific to each particular digital
TV standards, and may change as the digital TV specs evolves.

In the past, the strategy used was to have a union with the parameters
needed to tune for DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-T and ATSC delivery systems grouped
there. The problem is that, as the second generation standards appeared,
those structs were not big enough to contain the additional parameters.
Also, the union didn't have any space left to be expanded without
breaking userspace. So, the decision was to deprecate the legacy
union/struct based approach, in favor of a properties set approach.
In the past (up to DVB API version 3), the strategy used was to have a
union with the parameters needed to tune for DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-T and
ATSC delivery systems grouped there. The problem is that, as the second
generation standards appeared, the size of such union was not big
enough to group the structs that would be required for those new
standards. Also, extending it would break userspace.

.. note::
So, the legacy union/struct based approach was deprecated, in favor
of a properties set approach.

   On Linux DVB API version 3, setting a frontend were done via
   struct :c:type:`dvb_frontend_parameters`.
   This got replaced on version 5 (also called "S2API", as this API were
   added originally_enabled to provide support for DVB-S2), because the
   old API has a very limited support to new standards and new hardware.
This section describes the new and recommended way to set the frontend,
with suppports all digital TV delivery systems.

.. note::

   1. On Linux DVB API version 3, setting a frontend was done via
      struct :c:type:`dvb_frontend_parameters`.

   2. Don't use DVB API version 3 calls on hardware with supports
      newer standards. Such API provides no suport or a very limited
      support to new standards and/or new hardware.

   3. Nowadays, most frontends support multiple delivery systems.
      Only with DVB v5 calls it is possible to switch between
      the multiple delivery systems supported by a frontend.

   4. DVB API version 5 is also called *S2API*, as the first
      new standard added to it was DVB-S2.

Example: with the properties based approach, in order to set the tuner
to a DVB-C channel at 651 kHz, modulated with 256-QAM, FEC 3/4 and
symbol rate of 5.217 Mbauds, those properties should be sent to