API's and hardware communication. Newbie

[Grayham]

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.

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?

Cheers
Grayham

[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

[Grant Edwards]

On 2008-04-26, Grayham <[e-mail]:

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!

[Grayham]

It seems to me that python needs to be extended with C in some form to able
to do what i need. I think instead of learning two languages i am going to
put all my efforts in to learning C as it seems that's where i am going to
end up.

Thank you both for the feed back and links

Regards
Grayham

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Grayham schrieb:

It seems to me that python needs to be extended with C in some form to able
to do what i need. I think instead of learning two languages i am going to
put all my efforts in to learning C as it seems that's where i am going to
end up.

It's your decision of course. But you will end up in much more
frustration than learning python (maybe by not picking an endeavour so
big that it needs C on a certain level) and then after you have a good
grasp of general concepts try and adapt these to other languages such as
C. But again - you decide which road you prefer to go.

Diez