What Would It Take To Support Mpeg2, Specifically Dvds?

[nubie]

I am looking at something like this (DVD drive, CD burner), only possibly with an internal battery pack, I have seen such drive enclosures before.

What exactly will it take?

How do we get the hardware support out of the MMSP2, it is designed to be a DVD player chip after all, Isn't it?

I assume that there are some standard ways to get the data streaming off the DVD in Linux, but how do we make Mplayer use the hardware decoding so we can keep the CPU(s) clocked low, say under 80mhz.

On the same thought, assuming we have a load of ISO's* on an external USB Hard drive, can't we get full menu support for the ISO's to enable them to play back like they are real DVD's?

Is there some open source MagicEyes code that can get us moving in that direction?


*(legal of course, just who wants to cart around complete boxed sets to enjoy with friends when they all fit nicely on one external 300+ GB Hard Drive?)


Second post:

I envision a tiny, sleek BoB the size of:

a Laptop DVD drive,

a 2.5" HD

and battery pack

with USB ports lining one side and specially placed USB ports for the WiFi stick (on top) and LAN thumb size adaptor (slightly recessed in the back)

Add on the WIP PSP style menu replacer (or any one of your choice) and that could be a killer media center.

Imagine the storage possibilities when the perpendicular drives start dropping in price, 200GB on a 2.5" !! (I don't know what is going to happen, but newegg.com has a 160GB Seagate Momentus 2.5" right now for $224.99)

Any thoughts?

Edit: found this, 8x DVD drive on eBay for $49.99, $9.99 shipping, Buy it now. This kind of thing would be almost perfect, I just need to figure out an elegant mini BoB/battery pack thingy.

 

[fomit]

Well, I would think, given the fact that without an MPEG decoder card you need roughly a 400MHz processor to run DVDs well, that what you are proposing would be pretty much impossible.

 

[Vimacs]

well, someone would need to figure out how to acces teh decoder hardware direcktly.

Or gph/mse havea to release the kernel module, wich will never happen.

 

[nubie]

Well, I would think, given the fact that without an MPEG decoder card you need roughly a 400MHz processor to run DVDs well, that what you are proposing would be pretty much impossible.

Nice, do I have to use the big letters again?

The MMSP2 is designed for DVD and DVR set-top boxes.

The GP2X is mostly just a handheld MMSP2 processor:

Go here and look at the picture:

http://www.mesdigital.com/english/Products/product_mmsp2.asp

and Here, notice that this page is entitled "applications_dvd.asp", what could that possibly mean? :

http://www.mesdigital.com/english/applications_dvd.asp



Thanks Vimacs, I had to clarify your comment for those who don't realize that there is "electricity" flowing through "circuits" inside their game machine, and these "circuits" have a name and a picture to help you understand their potential uses. [/Sarcasm]

Edit: sorry for snapping, I am under a bit of stress right now, nonetheless people need to be force educated sometimes, fomit has been here way too long for this kinda ignorance.

 

[nickspoon]

We do have MPEG-2 in the current hardware module, and should we get mplayer source it would be (I should hope) trivial to get it running.

 

[sam fisher]

Once GPH are done 'commenting' the Mplayer source it should be released....

 

[Vimacs]

We do have MPEG-2 in the current hardware module, and should we get mplayer source it would be (I should hope) trivial to get it running.

I thought we only have divx/xvid and mjpeg?
Well good to hear.

 

[nubie]

We do have MPEG-2 in the current hardware module, and should we get mplayer source it would be (I should hope) trivial to get it running.

Sweet, that is what I wanted to hear, have you been planning this? And how did you find out it had MPEG-2?

 

[nickspoon]

There's some source from the 'gplayer' by DignSys, I believe. It's not GP2X-specific, but it gives a good idea of what the chip can do.

 

[PokeParadox]

TBH honest I would have been surprised if Mpeg2 video couldn't have been decoded by the hardware. Mpeg 4 based codecs are much more complex and require a larger performance overhead, generally speaking.

 

[nubie]

There's some source from the 'gplayer' by DignSys, I believe. It's not GP2X-specific, but it gives a good idea of what the chip can do.

That is basically what I expected when I ran across the DVD/DVR page on the MagicEyes website.

Excellent, as long as there is source, I am sure someone else had this thought too, $50-60 initial outlay for the DVD drive, and then 4GB apiece of data on a really cheap medium would be ideal.

I get a 100 Pack of DVD+R for ~$40 at Sam's Club.

 

[cbox]

I rip and decrypt dvds to an external 250 gig USB hard drive, was hoping to be able to hook that up to the gp2x and watch dvds that way, would be kinda neat.

 

[nubie]

I rip and decrypt dvds to an external 250 gig USB hard drive, was hoping to be able to hook that up to the gp2x and watch dvds that way, would be kinda neat.

Yeah, I said that, I just meant that the USB DVD drives are lighter and easier to use mobile.

For at home (or until the 2.5" HDD get to the 250GB size) it would be awesome to just as you say.

Source is all that is needed according to the respected coders among us, and the source exists, so hope remains, maybe in firmware 3.0, or with a scene-coded media player.

 

[Squidge]

Video decoding and playback has been figured out, and without the source code, so there's no reason this can't be done now. However, someone would have to be interested to take up the project (If you are, ask theoddbot on irc for info, as he's written his own video player)

I've documented a few of the hardware registers to do with video decoding, but not enough to actually use it, so you'll have to talk to the 940 for now.

On another note, I see the 2.0 source has the option for hardware mp3 decoding, so maybe a future firmware release will use this instead of the software mp3 decoder used at the moment, and further increase battery life when just playing mp3s? (and being able to play mp3's in emu's without much performance hit)

 

[nubie]

Video decoding and playback has been figured out, and without the source code, so there's no reason this can't be done now. However, someone would have to be interested to take up the project (If you are, ask theoddbot on irc for info, as he's written his own video player)

I've documented a few of the hardware registers to do with video decoding, but not enough to actually use it, so you'll have to talk to the 940 for now.

On another note, I see the 2.0 source has the option for hardware mp3 decoding, so maybe a future firmware release will use this instead of the software mp3 decoder used at the moment, and further increase battery life when just playing mp3s? (and being able to play mp3's in emu's without much performance hit)

Amazing, but how?

I don't remember anything in the PDF or the MagicEyes website that said anything about hardware audio.

I thought their solution was in software for DVD players and the like, I'm gonna go check it out now though.

 

[Shikaku]

It's just like Windows: there is all these magic functions that nobody knows about until they dig around....

 

[Vimacs]

Squide, im sure it would be greatly apreciated if you would post on the wiki what you ahve got so far.

 

[Squidge]

Amazing, but how?

I don't remember anything in the PDF or the MagicEyes website that said anything about hardware audio.

The PDF doesn't tell you how to do hardware video mpeg decoding either, but the chip definitely supports it

I don't know what the mmsp2 supports and doesn't support, but if you look at dualcpu.c in the 2.0 kernel source, you see this:

case IOCTL_DUALCPU_MP3D_SEND_DECFRAME:
case IOCTL_DUALCPU_MP3D_GET_DECRESULT:
case IOCTL_DUALCPU_MP3D_GET_MP3STREAMINFO:

Now, either this is done in software on the 940 (which to me would be daft), or some part of it is hardware accelerated.

Also, the codecs seems to have grown in 2.0 as well:

#define MP_CODEC_MP4D 0
#define MP_CODEC_MP4D_DIVX3 1
#define MP_CODEC_H263D 2
#define MP_CODEC_MP2D 3
#define MP_CODEC_MJPD 4
#define MP_CODEC_MP4E 5
#define MP_CODEC_WMVD 6
#define MP_CODEC_MP3D 7
#define MP_CODEC_MP1D 9
#define MP_CODEC_MJPE 10

 

[Khatoblepas]

Mp4, DivX3, H.263, Mp2, Mjpeg?, WMV (!!!), MP3 (!!!), and Mp1.

Also, with E and D on the end. I suppose that's Encoder and Decoder. =P No wonder GPH said they'd support WMV, since the hardware does, it's just the licence to be able to use it that they had to pay. Pretty good stuff for DVDr chip. I wonder if an alternate video/music player (doubtful, ogg doesn't have hardware decoding abilities on this?) could be made that doesn't use the second processor? It'd increase battery life, and I really see absolutely no point in the second processor other than to hide stuff - if, of course, all these codecs are purely hardware accelerated. o.o

 

[nickspoon]

Well, a video player that doesn't use the second processor wouldn't work very well. The current music player doesn't use the second processor.

Yes, and there are indeed encoders.

Khatoblepas: MJPEG is correct.