> Well, some basic questions to ask ourselves:
> 1) What will it do? I personally think that a reasonable aim is decoding
> video, hopefully even 720p/i or possibly 1080p/i, in real time (30+
> fps),
> while also providing a simple framebuffer and possibly audio. If
> video is
> the way to go, what formats?
1080p
Mpeg 1, 2 up to 80 Mbps
Mpeg 4 up to 20 Mbps ( Is this really the worst case? Seems low. )
H.264 up to 40 Mbps
H.264 is the killer. :-(
> I like the idea of an FPGA,
See OGD1. Prototype being tested last I read.
> Any sort of DSP should also work.
This seems very promising if we can find a suitable one. The TI ones look
great except they aren't fast enough. Anyone know if/when TI is coming
out with a newer faster model? I think a couple recent posts had pointers
to other brands?
> Do we need RAM?
We need RAM. IIRC the TI chips didn't have much if any built-in? I suspect
the other brands don't either. So we'll almost certainly need to add RAM.
> 3) What sort of interface? PCI? PCIe? USB? Ethernet?
OGD1 and OGC are going PCI-X/PCIe, so this project could go the other way
and use Ethernet. The TI chips have it built in, I'm not sure about the
other brands.
> 4) What sort of output? DVI, s-video, S/P-DIF, etc.
DVI plus s-video. What is S/P-DIF ?
It would be good to support component if we can.
Question is, do we require DVI dual link? DVI single link is good
for 1080, but only up to 60 Hz. There is a strong possibility that
we will need to support 1080 at higher than 60 Hz. And there are the
3 or 4 people that have the spendy 30" displays that require dual link.
> 5) What is the purpose? Is it designed as a media center, linux video
> "savior", or what?
A video/graphics device that connects via Ethernet instead of a
card slot. No problems with AGP vs PCI vs PCI-X vs PCIe. No
problems with being out of slots, or having none to begin with
(e.g. laptops). Put the noisy computer in another room.
FLOSS "savior"? yes
media server? yes
X11 server? yes (would need keyboard and pointing device, but that
shouldn't be hard to add.)
Also useful for those who want/need multiple displays from a single computer.
You want 30 displays? No problem.
Also useful for applications where you want the computer away from a harsh
environment, or in a secured room.
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