Video and output capabilities?

[techstamp]

Knowing the display is 720p and that codec could also have an effect depending on whether or not there's support for some hardware acceleration.

I'd be interested in playing some 1080p mkv video files of varying bit rates (400kbps - 1200kbps). Maybe 4k as my library grows. VLC would probably be my choice, but I've dabbled with gstreamer with some digital signs to push lower power hardware a littler further.

What do you estimate the maximum video resolution and bit rate the pyra will be capable of playing on it's 720p display and over it's HDMI 1.4a port?

I think 4k content to a 4k TV/Monitor may be ambitious, but I haven't worked with anything more powerful than a pandaboard which had a SGX540 onboard.

Maybe I have to review some more of the pyra hardware.

 

[TrashyMG]

My tests on the OMAP5 devboard, The CPU alone without any of the hardware decoding working properly can play 1080p h264 videos without issues outside it hits the CPU heavily. However Hardware scaling needs to be implemented otherwise you will get a cropped off picture or it will look too small if the video is <720p. I have had poorly encoded 1080p videos run poorly, but like I said in my effort of playing with video playback it was all without hardware decoding enabled. hopefully it will be working before release, one thing that needs to be resolved by the people getting prototypes.

4K videos you may want to setup a media server like Universal Media Center that will transcode the videos down to something reasonable and you can stream it via a network connection.

 

[techstamp]

That's good news, since reviewing some bit rates I do have some much higher that the kbps mentioned above.

This won't be the primary use for my Pyra, just one of those what if tech scenarios. I've got a full server set up with FreeNAS - will look into implementing something other than just reading the files remotely with Kodi. I did pre-order the US cell model a few months back so I guess that would continue to work given cell speed. Otherwise, It's always nice to carry around some content locally for some work or leisure travel and being able to plug into the TV.

Any idea how many cores the Pyra's PowerVR SGX544 has? I see it's configurations can scale from 2 to 16 cores.

 

[TrashyMG]

Any idea how many cores the Pyra's PowerVR SGX544 has? I see it's configurations can scale from 2 to 16 cores.

It's the dual-core version, MP2

Honestly never seen any device in my searching with the SGX544 that used more than 4-cores.

 

[Swordfish II]

My tests on the OMAP5 devboard, The CPU alone without any of the hardware decoding working properly can play 1080p h264 videos without issues outside it hits the CPU heavily. However Hardware scaling needs to be implemented otherwise you will get a cropped off picture or it will look too small if the video is <720p. I have had poorly encoded 1080p videos run poorly, but like I said in my effort of playing with video playback it was all without hardware decoding enabled. hopefully it will be working before release, one thing that needs to be resolved by the people getting prototypes.

4K videos you may want to setup a media server like Universal Media Center that will transcode the videos down to something reasonable and you can stream it via a network connection.

Have you tried any h265?

 

[TrashyMG]

Have you tried any h265?

I don't believe so, unless it was accidental. I'll need to find one or encode one myself to try it.

 

[techstamp]

A little more searching and I would of found out that MPx denotes core numbers.

According to wiki the Allwinner A31 shares the same GPU. The Allwinner A31 has been shown to play 4k content. Not sure if they have any additional decoder though.

 

[JonnyH]

A little more searching and I would of found out that MPx denotes core numbers.

According to wiki the Allwinner A31 shares the same GPU. The Allwinner A31 has been shown to play 4k content. Not sure if they have any additional decoder though.

The a31 can only do 'real' 4k content using it's hardware video block, and that restricts it's support (IE no h.265, and the omap cpu won't have a chance for a sw decoder implementation at realtime speeds)

The sgx itself is not used to decode video. That's a different block. (though it *can* resize/resample/post-process video after it's decoded, but that tends to be lower-effort anyway)