On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 12:43:38 -0800 Grant <emailgr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Which of these would be the best choice for Gentoo? I have a > > > Beaglebone but now I'm looking for something with video for HD > > > playback. > > > > > > - Grant > > > > I'd say none of them (yet). > > > > It doesn't matter what other features in the form of fancy IO and > > neat circuitry is put on such boards, they are all limited by what > > the CPU can do. If the board has a RealTek chip, it;s limited by > > what the RealTek dev software provides. > > > > I have a Raspberry Pi, and doing what it was designed to do is > > something it is very good at. It was designed to teach kids how to > > program. It was not designed to play full HD video. > > > > The Pi suffers with playback the very same way all the other ARM > > media players out there suffer, whether they be AC Ryan, Medi8ter, > > Xtreamer or whatever - as soon as you have to run some controlling > > software as well as the codec, and especially if you have to decode > > audio on the device (as opposed to having the amp do it in > > hardware), it stutters. The cpu just cannot cut it. > > That's too bad. I thought the GPU on at least some of these boards > was capable of smooth 1080p playback. The Pandaboard ES claims "Full > HD (1080p) multi-standard video encode/decode" but I suppose that > doesn't mean it's stutter-free. > > http://pandaboard.org/content/pandaboard-es > > - Grant I had the same disappointment. I suppose 1080p is a rather variable quantity - a konsole in 1080p is not exactly the same thing in terms of computing requirement as Transformers3 :-) But what the heck, get yourself a Pi anyway and run OpenElec on it. Improvements are constantly being made to the code, you might find it's acceptable for your needs. And besides, it's always a thrill getting that tiny little pcb running something useful. -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
