new HD Vomp?

[muellerph]

This sounds extremly interesting

[gdhgdh]

Oh goodness - yes please :D

[MartenR]

Just an update now TS, PES playback of mpeg audio, ac3, mpeg2 and h264 is working. Only 720p is stuttering, which is caused by a bug in vdr 1.7.16 index file generator, which is hopefully solved in 1.7.17, kls already published some patches.
I now have to add some necessary function for distribution, bootloader etc. . I will probably sometime in march go online with a repository for an open development.

Btw. my current code name is VDR on bluray disk aka VOBD, but I found out that this is already used by voice of bangladesh, so any ideas?

Marten

[stu-e]

This is very exciting but how easy is it to get to what I assume will be some kind of top level menu of the new VOMP client application?

Will it be something like this:?
Power on your bluray player
Select the HDMI input on your TV (not necessary if you have some kind of auto switching on your TV)
Select attached media playback/browser from your bluray player menu or remote control
Browse to your AVCHD file containing the new VOMP client application (USB stick or NAS I guess)
Voila! VOMP top level menu acquired.

The MediaMVP VOMP system I have gets some serious use. The fact you can press one button on a remote to get to the top level menu is very convenient indeed and gets good WAF. (2 presses if you don't have auto SCART switching).

Stu-e

[MartenR]

It will be something like this:

Will it be something like this:?
Power on your bluray player
Select the HDMI input on your TV (not necessary if you have some kind of auto switching on your TV)
Put in the vobd disk or push the play button if it is already inside
Select the server (wait for a software update if necessary)
and there it is

So more or less the same, AVCHD does not work with BD-J. Therefore you will need a BD-R, which can update itself over network (This part is on my todo list.)

Marten

[rdoac]

This sounds seriously impressive.

Will the firmware/disk iso work on a DVD-R etc or will we need to beg/borrow/steal a bluray writer to get it?

If it's Bluray only, can we buy the disk from somewhere, maybe a US (NTSC-60HZ HD) and a Euro (PAL 50Hz HD) version?

[MartenR]

Will the firmware/disk iso work on a DVD-R etc or will we need to beg/borrow/steal a bluray writer to get it?

You will need a bluray writer.

If it's Bluray only, can we buy the disk from somewhere, maybe a US (NTSC-60HZ HD) and a Euro (PAL 50Hz HD) version?

There will be no need for two different versions. (Since this can all be handled in software, the menu do not need to specify the 60 Hz or 50 hz and for the movies it will be set by the vdr file). Btw. ac3 will be native.

I will only open a repository with the source code.
If someone will offer a bluray with the software then its is likely that only builds from him will work, due to key stuff. (Since every build of a disc generates a new private public key pair and the java programs have to be signed by this key or by a leaf key)
But selling discs  is something I want not to be involved with.

Marten

[MartenR]

Just an update.
Since several weeks I have a bluray burner.
At the moment I managed to stream some data to a sony consumer player.
The thing which is crucial in the moment are several compatiblity issues and that starting a recording takes up to 5 minutes on a consumer player, I hope I can optimize this, otherwise the whole project will not be useful. Also a fast USB stick as memory for the bluray player is very crucial.

Marten

[MartenR]

Ok, now it takes one minute to start a recording, but this is all I can get, the platform seems to be useless for a fast streaming client. The streaming is just to focussed to playing short trailers, long movies are a problem.

Anyway I found a few TV Boxes based on Marvell chips with Android 2.2. Anyway the video api is not stable and published in the moment on android, the source code of the underlying framework is published.
I will try a port of vomp in HD, it is the first time since one and a half years, that I see an realistic option for this.

Marten

[stu-e]

Would this be an example of the sort of hardware you are referring to?
http://armdevices.net/2011/06/08/honeywld-marvell-armada-1000-88de3010-berlin-based-android-set-top-box/

Stu-e

[MartenR]

Yes, it can be, I found it on pearl.de http://www.pearl.de/a-PX1534-1601.shtml.  It looks promising, the firmware files in the download section reveal, that libstagefright and gstreamer with special Marvell plugins are present.
(I am not sure if it was changed in a proprierity way)
If it will be possible do use them is unclear. (I do not have such a box yet)

Anyway I will try to make a port to Android without video playback first using the emulator and then get such a box and add the video part, if possible.
But it is unclear, if it will work in the end, I will  just say  that there is hope.

Marten

[stu-e]

Interesting you mention GStreamer. There appears to be support for hardware decoding in GStreamer through VAAPI:
http://www.splitted-desktop.com/~gbeauchesne/gstreamer-vaapi/
Another possible VompHD solution could be to use a VAAPI supported motherboard as the thin client e.g. AMD 785G or nVidia ION and an inexpensive low power processor.

One would need to write a GStreamer element to weave video fields at field rate in order to support interlaced output without concern for field synchronisation. This is in theory an easy thing to do and negates the need for power hungry pulldown detection and deinterlacing.

One would also need some means of changing video resolution on demand depending on the video stream using XRandR.

I am not familiar with the Vomp client source code so I cannot guess how big the challenge would be to port it to the GStreamer API.

Stu-e

[MartenR]

Well, gstreamer on normal Linux is another story than on android. In principle it is possible to port vomp to linux using such apis. But for this already qtvomp exists.
And I prefer for a mvp replacement a device, which you can buy ready in a store with not too much deviation in the configuration in time, and I do not like the idea of a PC as replacement for the mvp. So I will not do a port to this, I will rather focus on android since it has the potential that there will be always devices, which support the corresponding apis. I do not know if I will uses the Gstreamer api or the libstagefrighthw api, both are unstable in Android and may change anytime, but at least there us hope at access the video hardware and in the future google will hopefully introduce a stable api for this.

Marten

[stu-e]

Oh I agree a ready built device with good access to a stable API is the preferred option. It's unfortunate that such an option has not existed since the MediaMVP to accommodate HD video.

[MartenR]

Just an update, I have ported the GUI and remote stuff to android.
I already have one device here and I will start now to port the video playback part.
The promising thing is that on the android filesystem of the device exist even c header files from marvell for the video device libs beside the gstreamer and android libs..

I also found this: http://www.raspberrypi.org/ which can provide another alternative in the future.

Marten