Is Pyra expensive outdated hardware?

[edgex004]

Question for EvilDragon,


How hard do you think it is to hack a camera in there?

I'm wondering about this too. One of the ideas I had was to solder the lines of a USB cable on top of the USB plug pins. Have these attached to a USB 2.0 camera with a kill switch in between. If you need to use the plug, kill the camera lines. If you need the camera, make sure no usb device is plugged in and activate the switch. Should the pandora/pyra then simply detect the camera as a USB device?

This is of course assuming we do not get dedicated pins for camera hacks...

 

[Natsu]

I don't want to bring much here, but the camera poll votes are close. The listen to ED, the meh, but voting no anyway and paranoia comments and votes wasn't really valid in the first place. At least if the camera(s) was there, everyone can used them even if they didn't think they wouldn't use it.
 
People seem to forget this is a convergence device (like just use a usb) until it comes to the features they want. I know there's a limit,but if there was a check off list, it would be the last one there for basic features.

I know it isn't fair, but I just want to bring it up. OnePlus 2. How are these guys even doing this?

Oh, and the more "we can add those features later" , "maybe the Pyra isn't for you" or wait and see, the harder the first batch will sell. The price too, but I'm just saying.

 

[_wb_]

The Nvidia shield is the device I was thinking about when I wrote about PS2 and game cube emulation. I am not a hardware expert, so I will believe whatever you answer to this question: Is Pyra more powerful than PSVita? If so, then I'm totally fine with it.

 
Yes, the Pyra will be more powerful than the PS Vita.


The Pyra has a Cortex-A15 cpu (2x), the PS Vita has a Cortex-A9 (4x, but only 3 cores are available).


The Cortex-A15 is quite a lot better than the Cortex-A9. The Cortex-A9 is barely better than the Cortex-A8 which is in the Pandora. The extra cores will help a bit, but in practice, single-core performance is still very often what counts.


Also the Pyra will have more and faster RAM, etc.

With that being said, the Vita has a PowerVR SGX543MP4+ gpu, which is like literally one model number lower than the Pyra will have, but with 4 gpu cores instead of 2, so Vita graphics are almost twice as fast.

I'm not sure about that. Memory size and speed are also a factor, and the Vivante GPU in the OMAP5 should also count for something. It's a bit of an apples and oranges thing.

 

[Natsu]

Pyra is kind of like a mid power phone with more features (except camera). At least vs most phones anyway.

 

[Caine]

Why does the overall tone of this thread (incl. my own posts) feel like a form of rationalizing? :unsure:

 

[TrashyMG]

Why does the overall tone of this thread (incl. my own posts) feel like a form of rationalizing? :unsure:

Because humans are naturally defensive when our opinons/views are challenged?

 

[moxie]

Because making a real product, instead of dreaming up an ideal fantasy machine without bothering about limits like cost and size and feasability, is rationalizing. Making a real product entails weighing options, deciding on some and discarding some, and hopefully being able to motivate these decisions in a rational way afterwards. 

 

[Caine]

Because making a real product, instead of dreaming up an ideal fantasy machine without bothering about limits like cost and size and feasability, is rationalizing. Making a real product entails weighing options, deciding on some and discarding some, and hopefully being able to motivate these decisions in a rational way afterwards.

No, that's making a rational trade-off. That's not quite the same thing.

 

[EvilDragon]

The main reason to not implement a camera is the price. It would probably increase the costs by about 60 - 70 EUR. We'd need an even more complex LCD cable we already have and we'd have additional assembly costs... the camera itself would be cheap, yes. But additional handling and signal wiring sadly isn't.

 

[moxie]

But it sounds the same. Explaining why something ended up the way it ended up, no matter whether you have valid reasons or make them up as you go along. That's why I say the original poster should go back and check the discussions.

 

[TrashyMG]

Question for EvilDragon,


How hard do you think it is to hack a camera in there?

I'm wondering about this too. One of the ideas I had was to solder the lines of a USB cable on top of the USB plug pins. Have these attached to a USB 2.0 camera with a kill switch in between. If you need to use the plug, kill the camera lines. If you need the camera, make sure no usb device is plugged in and activate the switch. Should the pandora/pyra then simply detect the camera as a USB device?

This is of course assuming we do not get dedicated pins for camera hacks...

USB is always the easier option, however The SoC OMAP5432 actually has a ton of camera support as it has three CSI-2 ports and two CCP2 Camera ports. However I'm not sure if hns( Nikolaus ) broke out any of these pins from the CPU daughterboard to the mainboard. Just one CSI-2/CCP2 camera port require multiple data lines 4-6 for data and usually an I2C bus connection on top of that... so it may not be something Nikolaus wanted to waste pins on the CPU daughterboard with.


To me it would appear hard to hack in a USB camera, if it's on the lid, you would need to figure out how to get a USB line up to it and how to do that without destroying the LCD cable. If it was in the base, it would be hard to find a place to put it. 

 

[edgex004]

Question for EvilDragon,


How hard do you think it is to hack a camera in there?

I'm wondering about this too. One of the ideas I had was to solder the lines of a USB cable on top of the USB plug pins. Have these attached to a USB 2.0 camera with a kill switch in between. If you need to use the plug, kill the camera lines. If you need the camera, make sure no usb device is plugged in and activate the switch. Should the pandora/pyra then simply detect the camera as a USB device?

This is of course assuming we do not get dedicated pins for camera hacks...

USB is always the easier option, however The SoC OMAP5432 actually has a ton of camera support as three CSI-2 ports and two CCP2 Camera ports. However I'm not sure if hns( Nikolaus ) broke out any of these pins from the CPU daughterboard to the mainboard. Just one CSI-2/CCP2 camera port require multiple data lines 4-6 for data and usually an I2C bus connection on top of that... so it may not be something Nikolaus wanted to waste pins on the CPU daughterboard with.

To me it would appear hard to hack in a USB camera, if it's on the LID, you would need to figure out how to get a USB line up to it and how to do that without destroying the LCD cable. If it was in the base, it would be hard to find a place to put it.

I think I was hoping to do the lcd cable loop around the 4 USB lines that would be needed. Is that how the antenna is currently fed on the Pandora?

I would much prefer the dedicated lines to be made available, but may try testing the USB solution on my Pandora first to see how it works.


Unfortunately there is so little software support on the Pandora for a USB camera that there isn't a lot of payoff for me to do this at the moment. Photo taking works well, but I haven't found a way to sync audio/video recording due to the variable fps of the video stream. Video chat isn't supported by the repo version of Pidgin, seems to be broken in Linphone, and seems near impossible to get working in android's various chat apps. Not to blame Notaz's amazing work getting us a working Android build, of course, but Android support for USB cameras in general is pretty abysmal from what I can tell.


Edit: Since additional layers have been added to the CPU board, is there potentially more room for these pins?

 

[Natsu]

Well, all I can hope for is people work on it and find a more seamless and relatively cheap situation. Maybe we can have back and front cameras built in someday.
For now, I hope for a better external camera option.

 

[TrashyMG]

Edit: Since additional layers have been added to the CPU board, is there potentially more room for these pins?

Layers have little to do with it, but the amount of pins on the connector between the CPU Daughterboard and mainboard. There are only so many channels for the essential things. Nikolaus may have thought ahead and reserved some of the camera lines if it just happened to get one in the future.

 

[fusion_power]

People rerally still want an built in Camera for Pandora? Why? It's not like everyone today already carries cameras all the way along with smart phones etc...

And would you really want another huge delay until the Pyra has a built in (spy?)Camera? Plus the extra costs for what benefit? I really didn't know that taking pictures seems to be THAT popular but of course I don't use any social media crap or have an Smartphone at all. And no need to take pictures of whatever...

 

[edgex004]

Edit: Since additional layers have been added to the CPU board, is there potentially more room for these pins?

Layers have little to do with it, but the amount of pins on the connector between the CPU Daughterboard and mainboard. There are only so many channels for the essential things. Nikolaus may have thought ahead and reserved some of the camera lines if it just happened to get one in the future.

I was thinking more if it was possible to expose the pins directly on the daughterboard, rather than having them pass through to the main board.

I was also thinking the necessary camera cables could be passed to the lid by having pins/pads meet at the hinge... these would of course be exposed to corrosion, but if the pins were on the bottom part of the case, they should at least be always protected from damage.

 

[Caine]

People rerally still want an built in Camera for Pandora? Why?

I assume you mean Pyra, not Pandora. Want, yes. Expect, no.
Why? Because I don't carry around any other camera and having to type in whatever information I want to capture quickly (*1) gets old really quickly. I don't really care how crappy it is, as long as I can read the contents of the pictures.

(*1) Think of receipts, whiteboard data, places you pass and want to visit or stuff you want to purchase and so forth.

 

[Natsu]

People rerally still want an built in Camera for Pandora? Why? It's not like everyone today already carries cameras all the way along with smart phones etc...


And would you really want another huge delay until the Pyra has a built in (spy?)Camera? Plus the extra costs for what benefit? I really didn't know that taking pictures seems to be THAT popular but of course I don't use any social media crap or have an Smartphone at all. And no need to take pictures of whatever...

Opinions from someone clearly filled with paranoia. It is called a cover.

People rerally still want an built in mic for Pandora? Why? It's not like everyone today already carries mics all the way along with smart phones etc...


And would you really want another huge delay until the Pyra has a built in (spy?)mic? Plus the extra costs for what benefit? I really didn't know that recording sounds seems to be THAT popular but of course I don't use any social media crap or have an Smartphone at all. And no need to take audio of whatever...

 

[rygD]

Edit: Since additional layers have been added to the CPU board, is there potentially more room for these pins?

Layers have little to do with it, but the amount of pins on the connector between the CPU Daughterboard and mainboard. There are only so many channels for the essential things. Nikolaus may have thought ahead and reserved some of the camera lines if it just happened to get one in the future.

I was thinking more if it was possible to expose the pins directly on the daughterboard, rather than having them pass through to the main board.

I was also thinking the necessary camera cables could be passed to the lid by having pins/pads meet at the hinge... these would of course be exposed to corrosion, but if the pins were on the bottom part of the case, they should at least be always protected from damage.

You should take this over to the camera thread.  I put some thoughts I had as a result of this discussion over there a little while ago.

(*1) Think of receipts, whiteboard data, places you pass and want to visit or stuff you want to purchase and so forth.

All of these fit into a little pocket sized notebook, and you can clear things up ("Buy Pyra" "Go to the park on Saturday for the car show" "The following things must be done by EOD Friday" and receipt can be folded up).  When you get home you can scan the recipt and put it where it belongs, or if you like paper, throw it in the folder with other stuff.  Writing it yourself helps you remember why it is important, and you can still access everything when your fone dies (or is stolen, as happened to a family member this morning).

People rerally still want an built in Camera for Pandora? Why? It's not like everyone today already carries cameras all the way along with smart phones etc...


And would you really want another huge delay until the Pyra has a built in (spy?)Camera? Plus the extra costs for what benefit? I really didn't know that taking pictures seems to be THAT popular but of course I don't use any social media crap or have an Smartphone at all. And no need to take pictures of whatever...

Opinions from someone clearly filled with paranoia. It is called a cover.

People rerally still want an built in mic for Pandora? Why? It's not like everyone today already carries mics all the way along with smart phones etc...


And would you really want another huge delay until the Pyra has a built in (spy?)mic? Plus the extra costs for what benefit? I really didn't know that recording sounds seems to be THAT popular but of course I don't use any social media crap or have an Smartphone at all. And no need to take audio of whatever...

Really?  Still with this?  ED, if you see this, I would like it if you can remove the mic so people can stop bitching about it.  It will be worth it to me to need to resort to using a headset to play DS games if I can not see anyone bring this up again (disregarding the fact that some units may be used to make and receive calls).

 

[Caine]

All of these fit into a little pocket sized notebook, and you can clear things up ("Buy Pyra" "Go to the park on Saturday for the car show" "The following things must be done by EOD Friday" and receipt can be folded up).  When you get home you can scan the recipt and put it where it belongs, or if you like paper, throw it in the folder with other stuff.  Writing it yourself helps you remember why it is important, and you can still access everything when your fone dies (or is stolen, as happened to a family member this morning).

That's true. Also, instead of playing emulated games you can go play volleyball on the beach, I just choose not to.