Hello Billy, > I'm worried about v4l2 because if it was clearly 'the right thing' it > would already be in the kernel. If it was for me, it would be in the kernel already for a long time. But I don't have the connections and credibility (and certainly not the deeper kernel knowledge) to push v4l2 into the kernel. > So, there must be some reason every > time I say 'v4l2' in certain circles that people go 'uuugh'. Certainly only bttv & v4l users -- for them, all v4l programs just "work", because it's *the* driver. But for my old v4l driver, getting programs to work was a pain in the ass. Nearly every program uses some bttv-only hack or sideeffect (undocumented ioctl, dependencies between ioctls, ...) Documentation is scarce, too. > But if this situation has changed, please let me know. Doesn't seem > like it: the bttv driver only now has initial support for v4l2, and it > doesn't support the VBI API. So, I'm just confused. So you have the following situation: use the old vbi v4l api with the restrictions already named (no-time stamping, not usable with other cards) or bug Gerd to implement the new v4l2 vbi api and use that... ;-) (...or do it by yourself) > If everyone thinks that v4l is dead and v4l2 forever, great, I'll > switch. Please let me know now. But I'm not going to support both. It's your decision. Nobody will tell you: v4l is superiour, use that, it's more flexible, has less bugs, works on different hardware, ... Many people have still problems getting their bttv-card to work, and most bttv users are happy because their system is alright for them. But for serious and hardware-independent capturing software that's not enough. I admit: v4l2 is work-in-progress for bttv. > 3) both are broken, let's start over. I've definitely heard that > before too. Nobody can stop you from that: but you will have to provide at least a working bt8x8 driver for that (supporting all cards that the current bttv supports...) But I'm repeating myself. Have a look at Justin Schoeman's comment on this thread, too. CU Michael.
