Dsp Theora

[Chairman_Now]

Saw this article on Slashdot, fullscreen video on N900 w/ 80% CPU idle @ 600mhz. Obviously applies to Pandora. Links:

http://blog.mjg.im/2010/04/16/theora-on-n900.html
http://www.schleef.org/blog/2009/11/11/theora-on-ti-c64x-dsp-and-omap3/
http://code.entropywave.com/leonora-beagle-board-demo/

Anyone going to start transcoding now?

 

[lulzfish]

Anyone going to start transcoding now?

No. My laptop has enough power to play the FLVs I have, and I don't think I'll really need them on my Pandora since they're porn.
I should have an Ogg rip of Transformers somewhere, but I can't say... Video codecs are such a pain in the ass. It would be convenient for Theora to magically take over in commercial DVDs, hardware acceleration, and online video, but MPEG holds a huge amount of status quo.

 

[Chairman_Now]

Nonetheless, I look forward to using this on Pandora - so I can use the DSP for something, at least. Yes, h.264, VC1 and mpeg2 would all be better. Does anyone know the status of DSP enabled codes for those formats?

 

[atomicthumbs]

If HTML5 ends up using Theora this could be cool

 

[darkblu]

yet another approach to GPU-assisted theora decoding is passing individual 8bpp textures for the Y, Cb and Cr, respectively, and doing all the colorspace conversion onboard the GPU. A nice feature of that approach is that each of the chrominance textures is 1/4 the resolution of the luminance one, and the final, on-GPU stage gets 'free' scaling of the chrominance textures through the GPU's TUs.

 

[ben_dash]

If HTML5 ends up using Theora this could be cool

Since Google open sourced VP8 I doubt we'll see the world move to Theora en mass, but you never know.

How is Pandora for Ogg Vorbis?

All my music is ripped into Ogg Vorbis, yes I should have originally ripped it all into Flac I know, but does the Pandora DSP handle Vorbis decoding or do we use the CPU for that currently?

I wonder how Pandora battery life compares for MP3 decoding versus Vorbis decoding...

 

[Aninhumer]

I doubt Theora is ever going to take over H.264 for video, it's just not a competitive codec, and there's already so much hardware in place that uses it.
If VP8 can actually compete (and is actually open sourced) it might stand more of a chance, but even then it will take some time.

All my music is ripped into Ogg Vorbis, yes I should have originally ripped it all into Flac I know, but does the Pandora DSP handle Vorbis decoding or do we use the CPU for that currently?

I wonder how Pandora battery life compares for MP3 decoding versus Vorbis decoding...

I don't think there's really much point using a DSP for audio decoding, it's already pretty easy.
I believe, Vorbis is a little harder than MP3, but not significantly.

 

[neko]

Since Google open sourced VP8

They did? When?

 

[Aninhumer]

Since Google open sourced VP8

They did? When?

Yeah exactly.
There was a rumour apparently from insiders that they are going to.

 

[Creature XL]

I don't think there's really much point using a DSP for audio decoding,

I know what you wanted to say. However, I can't resist
Audio decoding is on of the reasons why DSP were build.

 

[kaprikawn]

Since Google open sourced VP8

They did? When?

Yeah exactly.
There was a rumour apparently from insiders that they are going to.

Latest:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/google-planning-to-open-the-vp8-video-codec.ars

Not confirmed yet, 'insider sources' thing at the minute. But I think it's looking pretty likely.

 

[neko]

Since Google open sourced VP8

They did? When?

Yeah exactly.
There was a rumour apparently from insiders that they are going to.

Latest:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/google-planning-to-open-the-vp8-video-codec.ars

Not confirmed yet, 'insider sources' thing at the minute. But I think it's looking pretty likely.

They've been planning to do so ever since they made an offer to buy On2, but the reality is that right now VP8 is an internal beta which has never had any testing outside of On2 or Google. It could take a long time before it's ready for actual use.

 

[Kramy]

Anyone know any good theora encoders for Windows? Ones that let you tweak some settings, but don't force you to type out multiple lines of undocumented command switches?

I did find this one, but it has no bitrate control.

 

[paulguy]

If Theora is anything like Vorbis, it won't have an exact "bitrate" control, but a "quality" control. With different numbers resulting in a certain range of bitrates (though not exact.). Anyway, CBR anything is going the way of the dinosaur, there's no real point in it, as long as you set it to have a reasonable headroom for whatever transport you plan to carry it over.

CBR is mostly left over as an option on things with really cheapo hardware decoders that you got for $20 at Wal*mart.

I could argue usefulness for ABR, and a "target" bitrate, for if you want to fit X amount of time on to Y space. This is considerably better option than CBR, since you can use less bits when not needed and give more to scenes that need it more.

EDIT: On topic: VLC can probably do it.

 

[lulzfish]

EDIT: On topic: VLC can probably do it.

Keyword is probably. VLC tends to shit itself a lot when I use it, I don't think it's ever actually encoded anything properly for me.

 

[Kramy]

Ogg vorbis has had specific bitrate vbr encoding for a while now. It works quite good. It's very close in quality to HE-AAC, although at low bitrates it does cull some of the sounds the 3GPP AAC+ encoder retains.

 

[hedwards]

I doubt Theora is ever going to take over H.264 for video, it's just not a competitive codec, and there's already so much hardware in place that uses it.
If VP8 can actually compete (and is actually open sourced) it might stand more of a chance, but even then it will take some time.

Google has thrown some support behind Theora as a backup codec recently. They've been funding efforts to get acceleration support for Theora. Interesting times for Video on the Web

I wouldn't personally mind h.264 so much if it weren't such a pain to use outside of Windows.

 

[neko]

I wouldn't personally mind h.264 so much if it weren't such a pain to use outside of Windows.

It's somehow easier in Windows? Maybe in windows 7, but H.264 didn't come with XP or Vista.

 

[TrashyMG]

I wouldn't personally mind h.264 so much if it weren't such a pain to use outside of Windows.

It's somehow easier in Windows? Maybe in windows 7, but H.264 didn't come with XP or Vista.

It's pretty easy for any version of windows.. just need the CCCP codec pack

 

[neko]

I wouldn't personally mind h.264 so much if it weren't such a pain to use outside of Windows.

It's somehow easier in Windows? Maybe in windows 7, but H.264 didn't come with XP or Vista.

It's pretty easy for any version of windows.. just need the CCCP codec pack

The CCCP decoder is FFmpeg, which is the same on every other operating system.