Pyra as an HCPC

[Kev2442]

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering what we could do with the Pyra's USB/eSATA ports, and here are my personal ideas :

- Plug in an external DVD/Blu-ray and connecting an home cinema with the HDMI out so you can watch movies on it. Are we able to watch 1080p BDs with it or will it be sluggish ?

- Plug in an USB Hub, then connect it to a monitor/beamer, and use a mouse, possibly keyboard, and an external HDD to have a full pocket computer using a mate's equipment. Useful when fixing a friend's PC !

- Plug in various USB controllers (possibly using a Hub depending on number), connect to a TV and have your own retro console. Play on MAME with friends !

- Plug in a quality jack and use it with headphones/speakers to listen to music.

Is it powerful enough for BDs ? It is good for emulation, but will it be fast enough ? Are there already BD players on Linux ARM ?

Do you see any other possibilities at home ?

Has anyone tried some of these on the Pandora ? What were the results ?

 

[TrashyMG]

From what I've seen on the Devboard it should be able to handle bluerays.. I can play 1080p h264 encoded videos full speed on CPU power alone.


VLC and smplayer I believe have blueray capability.


If only someone wants to buy me a blueray drive to test it out...

 

[WizardStan]

I'm wondering what we could do with the Pyra's USB/eSATA ports, and here are my personal ideas

Unfortunately a moot point now, as the USB/eSATA combo port has been discontinued and EvilDragon has decided to replace it with a USB3.0 port (at only USB2.0 speeds on the OMAP5, but available for a future upgrade)

 

[Kev2442]

Thank you two for the answers.

I didn't remember about the eSATA, must've missed this.

Maybe we should try H.265 as well. May be a bit too much for the OMAP5 though.

But if VLC is BD-compatible, that would be great news.

Even if I prefer MPC-HC... ^_^

 

[WizardStan]

You didn't forget, EvilDragon only just made the anouncement

 

[Wally]

From what I've seen on the Devboard it should be able to handle bluerays.. I can play 1080p h264 encoded videos full speed on CPU power alone.


VLC and smplayer I believe have blueray capability.


If only someone wants to buy me a blueray drive to test it out...

I should test Blurays out. I've got an external drive.

 

[benoitb]

Maybe we should try H.265 as well. May be a bit too much for the OMAP5 though.



I would also be interested in knowing if h265 is decoded well at 720p and 1080p resolutions. I guess the answer will be no at 1080P, but would be good to know if 720p is possible.

 

[TrashyMG]

Granted, With proper acceleration its a non issue.

 

[WizardStan]

Unless TI is going to provide actual DSP support I kind of suspect the Pyra won't get any acceleration.

Offloading some stuff to the M4 cores, no problem, but you won't be writing an h264 decoder for that.

 

[slaeshjag]

To knowledge neither the M4 cores nor the virtualization stuff is working in the current OS image for the Pyra, so I wouldn't get my hopes up for that just yet

 

[thatgui]

From what I've seen on the Devboard it should be able to handle bluerays.. I can play 1080p h264 encoded videos full speed on CPU power alone.


VLC and smplayer I believe have blueray capability.


If only someone wants to buy me a blueray drive to test it out...

I'm a little confused - are you guys talking about BluRay or h264 encoded video files ? BluRay video streams can be encoded it several formats, and I am not sure wether VLC could handle a VC-1 encoded video stream (don't know about smplayer) on the Pyra.


If BluRay is actually the topic, I would like to add, that afaik VLC (and probably (s)mplayer too) don't support playing encrypted BluRay Disc (which is roughly 95% of whats available on the market) without proper keys.

 

[benoitb]

I am talking about neither Bluray neither H264 but interested in H265/HEVC.

I think H264 is granted.

 

[TrashyMG]

From what I've seen on the Devboard it should be able to handle bluerays.. I can play 1080p h264 encoded videos full speed on CPU power alone.


VLC and smplayer I believe have blueray capability.


If only someone wants to buy me a blueray drive to test it out...

I'm a little confused - are you guys talking about BluRay or h264 encoded video files ? BluRay video streams can be encoded it several formats, and I am not sure wether VLC could handle a VC-1 encoded video stream (don't know about smplayer) on the Pyra.


If BluRay is actually the topic, I would like to add, that afaik VLC (and probably (s)mplayer too) don't support playing encrypted BluRay Disc (which is roughly 95% of whats available on the market) without proper keys.

There are some shady work arounds to get blueray decoding working, My brother has spent a ton of time getting it to work on his Linux desktop, I don't know much about it myself, but a quick glance on a google search implies it has been done.


when I reference h264 I'm just giving an example of CPU power that the Pyra has, what was impossible to play without a proper decoder on the Pandora is possible on the Pyra due to the horsepower of the OMAP5.