PC-based DTV architecture

This paper presents the first PC-based DTV architecture using an industry standard PCI bus to transfer decoded video data from a DTV decoder to the graphics subsystem of a multimedia PC. The proposed architecture eliminates: (1) the need for a dedicated video port cable between a PC-based DTV decoder and a graphics controller, and (2) the need for a nonstandard graphics controller video port. This paper also presents a novel concept of bursting the decoded DTV data over the PCI bus with no visible video artifacts due to bus latency or different video/graphics refresh rates. In normal operation, this architecture consumes only about 31% of the bandwidth of a 33 MHz 32-bit PCI bus.