Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 14:38:44 +0100 From: Tom Evans <tevans.uk@googlemail.com> To: Dieter <freebsd@sopwith.solgatos.com> Cc: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org Subject: Re: TV-Tuner cards ( NTSC / PAL / SECAM ) - which works best? Message-ID: <1212068324.10665.59.camel@localhost> In-Reply-To: <200805281615.QAA16740@sopwith.solgatos.com> References: <200805281615.QAA16740@sopwith.solgatos.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
--=-Wx3VE74FchNJV0b/uXk3 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 09:15 +0100, Dieter wrote: > > > You can get decoder chips, for example: > > >=3D20 > > > Broadcom BCM70010 and BCM70012 claim to decode HD. > > > Mpeg2 up to 125 Mbps, H.264 up to 40 Mbps. > > >=3D20 > > > Available as chips, or on PCIe, PCIe mini, and ExpressCard 34 cards= . > > >=3D20 > > > Under $40. > > >=3D20 > > > Product brief: > > > http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pb/70010_70012-PB00.pdf > > >=3D20 > > > A BSD device driver would need to be written. And you need > > > a free slot. (Free slot? What's that?) > >=20 > > That sounds freakin awesome. Wonder if they can handle MBAFF encoding. >=20 > I don't know. We need a data sheet for the chip. >=20 > That is one problem with decoder chips, they may not work with new codecs= . > Some of them are said to not work well with freeze frame, slow/fast motio= n, > reverse, etc, anything but normal forward 1x play. >=20 > Another method is a DSP chip. Less expensive and less power/heat than > a CPU. And you can program it to handle new codecs. The problem is > finding one that is fast enough. >=20 > > > ATI has documented some of their graphics chips. The penguins > > > have them offloading some of the video decode work. Is anyone > > > working on getting this working with BSD? > > >=3D20 > > > The 780G is supposed to be able to decode HD H.264, but I don't know > > > if they've documented that chip or not. > >=20 > > All Nvidia chips from 6600 (ish) up can accelerate H264, and all Ati > > with 'avivo' (1xxx series) can also do it. The problem is, they can onl= y > > accelerate within windows. Theres no open API that would allow apps + > > drivers to accelerate video decoding. There is a started project at > > freedesktop working on video acceleration apis [3], but it isn't exactl= y > > making stellar progress :) >=20 > I was thinking Xv and XvMC. IIUC the penguins have at least Xv working > with some ATI chips. Xv and Xvideo work well with both the beasty and the penguin, at least for intel, nvidia (closed source). Xv/Xvideo are good for displaying video (its a good overlay api), not so good for accelerating codecs. XvMC works on nvidia, intel and via unichrome - I expect the new open source ati drivers will support it as well, sooner rather than later, but that does no good for anything other than MPEG-2, and from what I've read, is virtually no use for H264.=20 My best results for H264 come using the 'gl2 (multiple texture)' driver in mplayer, as opposed to rather than xv or xvmc. XvMC reduces CPU usage when viewing MPEG-2 content, but I only have access to 480i/p MPEG-2 (standard def DVB-T transmissions and DVDs), so the net effect is reducing CPU usage from 10% to 5%. If you are fortunate enough though to get HD content in MPEG-2 format, XvMC is the meal-ticket. According to the myth wiki[1], even crappy CPUs/platforms can handle 1080i MPEG-2 content with XvMC. I'm picking up a DVB-S card for my mythtv linux box this weekend, I'll grab some sample HD content to examine.. Cheers Tom [1] http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC --=-Wx3VE74FchNJV0b/uXk3 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (FreeBSD) iEYEABECAAYFAkg+seEACgkQlcRvFfyds/dR0QCgu93VqxhClO2Ljgc6KbzeHubv YgYAnionFy/xElX5wzdUcZ9a7zb0x6sj =IMes -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-Wx3VE74FchNJV0b/uXk3--
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?1212068324.10665.59.camel>