From owner-freebsd-multimedia  Sat Jul 26 14:41:05 1997
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-multimedia>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA21636
          for multimedia-outgoing; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:41:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from rah.star-gate.com (rah.star-gate.com [204.188.121.18])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA21626
          for <multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG>; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:41:03 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from rah.star-gate.com (localhost.star-gate.com [127.0.0.1])
	by rah.star-gate.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA11329;
	Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:40:25 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199707262140.OAA11329@rah.star-gate.com>
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96
To: "Gary T. Corcoran" <garycorc@idt.net>
cc: Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM, multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Software MPEG-2 (Was: Posting prefix) 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:12:58 EDT."
             <33DA685A.446B9B3D@idt.net> 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:40:25 -0700
From: Amancio Hasty <hasty@rah.star-gate.com>
Sender: owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

I am afraid that just because Intel tried and failed does not mean
that we can't do it. Too many open questions.

Is the programmer or team competent? There is a huge difference 
between someone working 9 and 5 and a nearly obsessed programmer
or hightly motivated programmer tackling the problem.

Which platform where they using?

Did they use directdraw ? (assuming that they used win95 or winnt)

What resolution , color depth and bitrate where they using?

The list goes on and on...

At the very least is worth investing the possibility of 
decoding mpeg2.

	Amancio

>From The Desk Of "Gary T. Corcoran" :
> Tony Kimball wrote:
>  
> > Is the mpeg2 format documented online?  I understand that conventional
> > wisdom requires hardware assist, but that just represents an
> > algorithmic challenge....
> 
> I heard Intel (first hand) say that a 233MHz MMX Pentium will *almost*,
> *but not quite* be fast enough for software MPEG-2 decode (they tried it).
> In other words, while it generally worked, for high complexity/high motion
> scenes, it hiccuped.  So until most of us have 300+ MHz processors, we'll
> need to use hardware for MPEG-2 decoding.
> 
> Of course, if you'd like to get a head start and start writing code for
> future processors, be my guest...  ;-)
> 
> Or maybe you can find a "trick" that Intel didn't think of... ???
> 
> Gary Corcoran