video playback quality

[LoopStar]

One thing that keeps me wondering is the quality of video playback (720p/x264 to be precise) since this is something I intend to use the Pyra for. On all Linux systems I've tried it so far this always comes with quite a bit of page-tearing. So it'd be great if ED could try this on the prototype.

 

[EvilDragon]

Right now, it'll be pretty horrible on the prototype, as I still have to use a slow X-Server until Nikolaus finishes the kernel driver of the LCD.

x264 with 720p should with the final OS, but it'll never be as smooth as with a dedicated media player, as x264 is slow to decode in software.

 

[Wally]

We've got no hardware acceleration yet so video quality is going to be lacking..

Here's a sample from the omap evm devboard.
Courtesy of TrashyMG

 

[LoopStar]

Thanks for the quick replies! I haven't watched the video yet since I'm on the Pandora atm. But I hope there will be improvement on this with the proper video driver in the future.

 

[TrashyMG]

I made that Video, the quality and speed are fine, it's just that it's eating up a lot of CPU cycles to playback 1080p or 720p HD videos without a proper driver.

@EvilDragon, I turned up the amount of threads used for h264 playback and that got playback to full speed in smplayer.

 

[LoopStar]

I've just watched the video and I have to say that it looks fine to me. Of course it'd be great if the Pyra got a proper video driver to decrease the cpu load. Thanks again for your replies, everyone!

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

So, is it foolish to hope that with vlc player, Pyra will (eventually at least) be able to handle standard, proper fps blu-ray-quality 1080p playback on its built-in screen (coming from an external disc drive and streaming video over the net, and just files stored on one of Pyra's various storage media)? I'm not sure if there are more different video codecs beyond h.264/h.265/vc-1 for video, but will they and the various audio codecs (high-end surround through hdmi-out of course) as well ever work out properly? I hope so.. I know Pyra has just a 720p screen, but being able to handle playback of all 1080p content would sure be nice.

 

[ible]

just mix it down and stream ascii characters.
http://www.tweakandtrick.com/2014/04/vlc-ascii.html

 

[TrashyMG]

I know Pyra has just a 720p screen, but being able to handle playback of all 1080p content would sure be nice.

one of those videos was 1080p, if I had a Blue ray player I would've tried it. Blue Ray playback may actually be easier on the CPU since it's not compressed as much.

 

[Plume]

Doesn't the Pyra have some hardware acceleration for video output ?

 

[TrashyMG]

Doesn't the Pyra have some hardware acceleration for video output ?

In theory it does, but it depends on how broken Ti's implementation is.

 

[fusion_power]

So, is it foolish to hope that with vlc player, Pyra will (eventually at least) be able to handle standard, proper fps blu-ray-quality 1080p playback on its built-in screen (coming from an external disc drive and streaming video over the net, and just files stored on one of Pyra's various storage media)?

VLC can't even play 1080p Videos fluid on my Quad Core PC. There may be better software out there for High Res Video Playback.

In theory it does, but it depends on how broken Ti's implementation is.

Or in other words, no Video HW accelerationon the Pyra I guess.

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

Well, I'm all for better/less resource demanding video playback, I simply like vlc because it plays everything I throw at it, that way I don't need to bother with anything else (no need for separate player for audio and one for video, that way a little less clutter). The thing about your PC and 1080p video, though..I don't remember what the specs were at the moment, but the old pc I had(it's dead now) could barely play Borderlands1 at low graphics settings and 720p resolution, skyrim could run at 1080p, but with low settings and occasional frame rate hitches, yet I could still play back 1080p video through vlc that I'd downloaded from the internet without any apparent issues, so I'm not sure that it's purely a vlc problem..

 

[Djoga'Ro]

VLC can't even play 1080p Videos fluid on my Quad Core PC. There may be better software out there for High Res Video Playback.

Well, I'm all for better/less resource demanding video playback, I simply like vlc because it plays everything I throw at it, that way I don't need to bother with anything else (no need for separate player for audio and one for video, that way a little less clutter). The thing about your PC and 1080p video, though..I don't remember what the specs were at the moment, but the old pc I had(it's dead now) could barely play Borderlands1 at low graphics settings and 720p resolution, skyrim could run at 1080p, but with low settings and occasional frame rate hitches, yet I could still play back 1080p video through vlc that I'd downloaded from the internet without any apparent issues, so I'm not sure that it's purely a vlc problem..

One of you talking about decoding in the CPU, the other about decoding in the GPU?

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

maybe?

 

[elvissteinjr]

A slightly tuned mpv build may do wonders. I personally hope to be able to at least play low complexity h.264 1080p on there, but also have little doubts.

As a very unscientific comparison, VLC takes around a third more CPU time to decode the same video than mpv (no gpu acceleration). To be fair, this means next to nothing as they're both using the same libs for that afaik, my mpv is just a tuned build and VLC slightly outdated.

 

[WizardStan]

Doesn't the Pyra have some hardware acceleration for video output ?

Yes, it's basically the same hardware acceleration as the Pandora has, the DSP, which was never used.

 

[Plume]

Yes, it's basically the same hardware acceleration as the Pandora has, the DSP, which was never used.

And what is with the IVA-HD-thing the OMAP 5432 should have ?

 

[WizardStan]

Probably even less likely to be used than the DSP.

 

[Plume]

Probably even less likely to be used than the DSP.

Because ... ?