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General => Developers => Topic started by: cobradevil on November 04, 2007, 09:38:05 am

Title: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: cobradevil on November 04, 2007, 09:38:05 am
How is that possible without breaking any rules?

is it legal?
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chewi on November 04, 2007, 01:17:33 pm
Possiple ?
Not really... The Movies are encrypted. There is one key that was hacked some time ago, i think, but I don't know, what software you'd need to use it and it will be invalidated some time in the near future. The only Software, that I know of that has a key is PowerDVD for Windows...

Legal ?
It's not legal to crack the key. Just as with DVDs under Linux... That's not legal as well (in most countries), as the Encryption Key of the DVD is cracked when you insert it. That's why the lib is not shipped with most Linux Distributions...

For more information, you should visit wikipedia and the appropriate forums and communities focusing especially on dvd, blueray and hddvd and legal and driver issues... LinuxMCE only utilizes whatever there is being developed...

Best regards, Andreas
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: teedge77 on November 04, 2007, 03:31:56 pm
danielk explains it some here...search first ;)


Quote
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2954.msg14879#msg14879
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: cobradevil on November 06, 2007, 12:40:19 pm
Well now i am realy astonished :(


Ok playback will be in but you need a hell of a lot performance to do that.

there is no acceleration for playing back hd content on nvidia/ati cards at the moment because the drivers do not support anything more then accelerated mpeg2.

I did some research to find out that there isn't any accelerated playback for now.
you need a dualcore to play back hd content, thats not cool for a media solution under your tv with a fast core upstairs.

I took a look at my brothers PC to find out that he could play hd content with windows media player but could not with vlc because the screen was stuttering. vlc does not use the acceleration and wmp does.

Am i missing something?
Is linux not capable of playing hd content because we are missing some link to hardware accelerated playback?
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: tschak909 on November 06, 2007, 02:13:00 pm
yes, but the reason why is because all of said things are patented, and can not be implemented in free software products at all.

-Thom
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: cobradevil on November 06, 2007, 06:24:33 pm
If it has all to do with patents then why can intel create a new api?

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi

Patents are everywhere but a hardware vendor can support a few api's but nvidia is not taking any action at all.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=96183

I think without decent support for accelerated video playback it doesn't make sense to create a linux based media center at all, because a lot of movies (bluray / hddvd ) are already in hd format 1080p and i do think a media centre should support those formats. That was also the reason i bought a full HD screen television so i could play back movies at full resolution.

not using a dual core system with 2 gig of memory as media director eating more than 600 Watt

Well it plays music very well and also the home automation thing is working so I can use lmce for that i guess.

These things make me sad  :'(

With kind regards

William van de Velde
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chewi on November 06, 2007, 07:51:10 pm
What kind of hardware acceleration do you want ?

There was an article in the german C'T testing hddvd and blueray on windows with a state-of-the-art machine and it does not work well at all...
The video-acceleration of ati and nvidia (that is only in 2 chipsets of each vendor) does not make the big difference...

The problem is with the decryption. That eats up two thirds of the performance needed for playing hd-content from blueray and hddvd...

I think we'll have to wait until some vendor has the mercy or finds it to be an interessting market and supports hardware-decryption for both standards and hopefully works with the linux community on drivers for the kernel... besides that, lay back and relax and watch hd-content from your cable provider... Here in Germany, you cannot even do that for more than 3 programs...

Patience is the key for consumers and the industry just ruins technology-evolution... Too complex creatures (1080/i/p/25/30/unsupported+fake24p,...) never survive... And trying to sell a customer 3 different devices within only 3 years for [hd ready 720 | full hd 1080/25,30 | full hd ready? 1080/24p], 2 video-disk-formats with changing specification after release (blueray 1.3something finally got picture-in-picture but still no internet-content from hddvd) instead of compining video-features from hddvd with storage from blueray (40gb compared to 50gb or 100gb with firmware-upgrade on 4-layer)...

Don't expect any company to really put effort in research and driver-building until those arguments are settled and there is actually a market of working products... ;)

(Sorry for bitching around...)

Best regards,

a sad Andreas
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: PeteK on November 06, 2007, 08:02:40 pm
If it has all to do with patents then why can intel create a new api?

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi

Patents are everywhere but a hardware vendor can support a few api's but nvidia is not taking any action at all.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=96183

I think without decent support for accelerated video playback it doesn't make sense to create a linux based media center at all, because a lot of movies (bluray / hddvd ) are already in hd format 1080p and i do think a media centre should support those formats. That was also the reason i bought a full HD screen television so i could play back movies at full resolution.

not using a dual core system with 2 gig of memory as media director eating more than 600 Watt

Well it plays music very well and also the home automation thing is working so I can use lmce for that i guess.

These things make me sad  :'(

With kind regards

William van de Velde

Well, if the difference is putting an HD-DVD in a dedicated player vs. putting it in a $2-3K windows media center PC, I'll take the HD-DVD player.  Remember, you can control the HD-DVD player through LMCE.  While LMCE will relinquish the screen to the HD-DVD player, it can automate TV and Receiver control, and switch inputs back to LMCE when the user wants to change.  Follow-me and distributed video won't work, but then again, they're not an option in Windows either.  One day, if HD-DVD ever actually implementes managed copy, things may be different, but I don't see any advantage of Windows for HD-DVD/Blu-ray playback.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: cobradevil on November 06, 2007, 10:52:53 pm
Non taken

i was just skeptic that my brother could play a wmv-hd (VC-1 without encryption) with windows media player and he couldn't with vlc, because vlc did not support the microsoft extension supported by nvidia to do accelerated playback.

I just want to take full advantage of full hd.

I will try it with my 2.4 Ghz machine with the same nvidia card under windows to see if the playback is different.

With kind regards

William van de Velde

Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 10, 2007, 09:44:03 pm
I think without decent support for accelerated video playback it doesn't make sense to create a linux based media center at all, because a lot of movies (bluray / hddvd ) are already in hd format 1080p and i do think a media centre should support those formats. That was also the reason i bought a full HD screen television so i could play back movies at full resolution.

I fully agree with that: the whole point is to have only one unique solution for all medias. If HD is missing, there is no point in having a media center. I am afraid we will be stuck with MS and WMP for a while! >:(
Too bad, LMCE is very promising. :'(
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: tschak909 on December 10, 2007, 09:57:15 pm
oh waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

waah waah waah

i've never heard so much crying in my life.

why don't you guys buck up and help us make this system better instead of waiting for someone to come along and do it?

-Thom
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 10, 2007, 10:13:44 pm
oh waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

waah waah waah

i've never heard so much crying in my life.

why don't you guys buck up and help us make this system better instead of waiting for someone to come along and do it?

-Thom


Sorry about that but I am just an end-user. (a free rider?) I guess people like me will have to put up with making MS always bigger while Linux will keep being a tool/playground for techies at least for a long while.
One day though...
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 10, 2007, 10:30:35 pm
oh waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

waah waah waah

i've never heard so much crying in my life.

why don't you guys buck up and help us make this system better instead of waiting for someone to come along and do it?

Sorry about that but I am just an end-user. (a free rider?) I guess people like me will have to put up with making MS always bigger while Linux will keep being a tool/playground for techies at least for a long while.
One day though...

This is a developers forum. If you're going to offer only demands (and masked insults), you should stick to posting wish lists in the Feature requests & roadmap (http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?board=350.0) forum. People discussing here generally are techies. The ones working for free to make your life better.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: hari on December 10, 2007, 10:33:01 pm
This is a developers forum. If you're going to offer only demands (and masked insults), you should stick to posting wish lists in the Feature requests & roadmap (http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?board=350.0) forum. People discussing here generally are techies. The ones working for free to make your life better.

full ack, nothing to add.

regards,
Hari
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: teedge77 on December 10, 2007, 10:35:16 pm
ummm....theres millions of people who use open source stuff that dont know how to contribute, and instead of whining about whining, why dont you help to convince them they could contribute something (other than bitching at them)? anything at this point helps i suppose. also....i guess its just a shot in the dark when you tell people to help with the programming, but they arent always programmers or theyd probably try. you could always mentor people into programming  ;) i am sure its a bit daunting to quite a few who wish they were able to do it. hows it go...sugar...water...vinegar....hmm...idk...im sure youve all heard it anyway. oh...and that other one...fishing...guy....eat dinner...or make his own meal...idk ;)
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 10, 2007, 10:38:19 pm
ummm....theres millions of people who use open source stuff that dont know how to contribute, and instead of whining about whining, why dont you help to convince them they could contribute something (other than bitching at them)? anything at this point helps i suppose. also....i guess its just a shot in the dark when you tell people to help with the programming, but they arent always programmers or theyd probably try. you could always mentor people into programming  ;) i am sure its a bit daunting to quite a few who wish they were able to do it. hows it go...sugar...water...vinegar....hmm...idk...im sure youve all heard it anyway. oh...and that other one...fishing...guy....eat dinner...or make his own meal...idk ;)

That is precisely why I directed them to the Feature Request forum, even linking to it so everyone like them can follow them.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: teedge77 on December 10, 2007, 10:43:09 pm
sorry to keep this one going. but...anyway...
i dont know anything about programming. i really wish i did. id definitely take the time if someone here would help point in a direction that would be good to start, while still being productive. obviously theres plenty of good developers in here. maybe some of you could help point some more of us in a direction so we could learn to be more productive. im still trying to learn linux too and ill just have to manage that on my own. not looking to have my hand held....just advice and experience to lean on.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Zaerc on December 10, 2007, 10:54:45 pm
I couldn't care less about all that DRMmed bullshit anyway.  If these dumbass consumers wouldn't buy into this crap over and over again this sort of shite would have been a thing of the past a long time ago.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 10, 2007, 11:30:50 pm
Sorry guys! I did not mean to be rude to anyone. just asking questions and giving opinions. did not intend to be insulted either.
Can't we all calm down and get useful discussion here?

So my simple question is: is there any chance in the foreseeable future that HDDVD/Blu Ray be supported by LMCE? My understanding from this thread is no.
Am I wrong?
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: hari on December 10, 2007, 11:43:18 pm
Sorry guys! I did not mean to be rude to anyone. just asking questions and giving opinions. did not intend to be insulted either.
Can't we all calm down and get useful discussion here?

So my simple question is: is there any chance in the foreseeable future that HDDVD/Blu Ray be supported by LMCE? My understanding from this thread is no.
Am I wrong?
there are some posts in the forum that say there will be HD-DVD/Blu Ray support in 0710 (with the help of mplayer). But i assume it will only work for unencrypted or "cracked" (leaked keys) discs.
You could also connect a HD Player (changer) to lmce and control it via rs232 or ir.
The Via based MD's with special drivers support 1080i with really low power usage. Time will fix underpowered hardware. And that HD stuff is not ready for the prime time. Too few see differences, too many bad hardware (i say only 24p), expensive and bad cabling (look what you pay for 10m hdmi or for active repeaters, switchers, ...), expensive content (35€ for 480p Blu Rays [laugh])..

time will fix..

regards,
Hari
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: teedge77 on December 11, 2007, 12:02:43 am
Quote
Too few see differences, too many bad hardware (i say only 24p), expensive and bad cabling (look what you pay for 10m hdmi or for active repeaters, switchers, ...), expensive content (35€ for 480p Blu Rays [laugh])..

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024005&p_id=3963&seq=1&format=2 (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024005&p_id=3963&seq=1&format=2)

$25 bucks for 10m of cable isnt so bad. A 480P blu ray? uhh....have you seriously seen one? too few see differences? do you know how many people use the "office xp operating system"?  ;D how many "primetime" people will use repeaters or switchers? the stupidity of the average consumer will astound for millenia to come. that doesnt mean it wont be ready for primetime. primetime is just the people who accept using something they dont understand and are unable to use to its full potential and the rest of us.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: hari on December 11, 2007, 12:20:40 am
$25 bucks for 10m of cable isnt so bad.
to much for a dumb twisted pair with bad connectors if you ask.. and thats a very good price..
look what they cost at consumer stores..
Quote
A 480P blu ray? uhh....have you seriously seen one?
yes, twice (ok, that were old movies, but you get the point)
Quote
too few see differences?
most of them even don't get the aspect ratio right
Quote
do you know how many people use the "office xp operating system"?  ;D how many "primetime" people will use repeaters or switchers? the stupidity of the average consumer will astound for millenia to come. that doesnt mean it wont be ready for primetime. primetime is just the people who accept using something they dont understand and are unable to use to its full potential and the rest of us.
So im there with PS3, Denon Upscaling DVD, Samsung M86, Marantz SR with built in HDMI switch and progressive conversion, spatz hdmimax repeater (forget purelink), Matrix Monitor S1 HDMI cable, different brands of other cable. Had pink screen, no screen, hdcp issues, drop outs, firmware updates and endless hours debugging.
I'm a geek and i have spoken to some integrators and hifi dealers. This stuff is terribly broken. At least for home installations. Of course it looks great when you hook a ps3 up to the Samsung. But many other situations are really _not consumer friendly_ and therefore that crap is not primetime ready yet.
And when you spend more for the cable and the repeater on a 10m link than for the player device itself, man thats broken. punt.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 11, 2007, 01:11:48 am
Of course it looks great when you hook a ps3 up to the Samsung. But many other situations are really _not consumer friendly_ and therefore that crap is not primetime ready yet.
And when you spend more for the cable and the repeater on a 10m link than for the player device itself, man thats broken. punt.

PS3/Ubuntu/MPlayer (with SPU driver) is $400, including Blu-Ray, HDMI-out (and the cable :)), Gb-e, Bluetooth, WiFi, and USB. Sounds like a perfect Media Director (except the fan is a little loud). In fact, since it's got so little RAM, it sounds like it's not good for anything else but a MD (or Blu-Ray player) unless you like playing games :).
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: teedge77 on December 11, 2007, 01:12:38 am
eh....the consumers do it to themselves. just like zaerc was saying about drm. they go with whatever theyre fed and greedily accept it. 480P....there shouldve been like 10 movies on there...were they at least as cheap as dvds? ill assume not. ha....funnily enough...my wifes uncle is a home theater installer. we recently went over there for dinner. he had a 50-60 pioneer elite plasma. his wife kept putting on all these "HD" shows...obviously trying to goad everyone into the "oh its so beautiful" applause. the thing is...it wasnt getting an hd signal. my assumption is that its their old tivo. idk....it definitely wasnt hd though. my wife couldnt tell the difference...im still not convinced she can...think she just doesnt want me bitching at her cause she cant tell....at least now she says she can. 25% of america knows that there wont even be analog tv much longer.....some people are in for an awful surprise. like i was saying...youre not the prime time crowd. prime time is the small family that doesnt have a home theater. its ready for primetime. all they want is a picture thats big. not looking for amazing sound or video. brilliant color? dont care...11 channel surround? they dont care. like you said, youre a geek. prime time people dont need installers and integrators and just want to watch the movies they rented from whatever store they stopped at on the way home from grocery shopping. which parts did they say are broken? everyone can find something wrong with everything....everythings always broken to someone. punt?
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: hari on December 11, 2007, 01:24:49 am
which parts did they say are broken? everyone can find something wrong with everything....everythings always broken to someone. punt?
it's broken for not using SDI-HD (SMPTE 292M) but that intel DVI/TDMS crap with CEC and HDCP.
But it's sad that you are probably right with the primetime..

best regards,
Hari
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: teedge77 on December 11, 2007, 01:49:12 am
well...no one can fault you for being ahead of the game...but im sure theres many others that feel your pain. it certainly is sad about the typical consumer though....
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: blackoper on December 11, 2007, 06:56:58 am
just rip your hddvds and bluray to h264 and store it on a drive array.. That's what I do. For 1080p with high quality sound it works out to about 10GB per disk
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Hagen on December 11, 2007, 12:28:49 pm
Legal ?
It's not legal to crack the key. Just as with DVDs under Linux... That's not legal as well (in most countries), as the Encryption Key of the DVD is cracked when you insert it. That's why the lib is not shipped with most Linux Distributions...
Depends wildly on the country you are in, in Norway making copies for yourself, family and friends is entirely legal, and if the medium is not 'copyable' then there are no restrictions against making a program to crack the copy protection. actual legislation says it's illegal to sell copy protected material, but there has been no 'reaction' against the movie and record industry so far.
The DeCSS case here resulted in a total loss for the American movie industry that sued a young individual for distributing and making a UI for deCSS.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chrisbirkinshaw on December 11, 2007, 02:20:39 pm
Doesn't look too difficult:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD

Though if the disk is encrypted you'll need to rip it first.

Perhaps the solution is to have a HD-DVD rip tool in LMCE and then be able to play these using the media player. Unencrypted disks could be played directly. If you try to play an encrypted disk a message pops up informing you it needs to be ripped first and asks whether you want to go ahead. Once ripping is finished the movie starts playing, or you can choose to start watching immediately if you accept that fast forwarding and chapter access etc will not be possible.

??

Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: totallymaxed on December 11, 2007, 06:24:44 pm
Sorry guys! I did not mean to be rude to anyone. just asking questions and giving opinions. did not intend to be insulted either.
Can't we all calm down and get useful discussion here?

So my simple question is: is there any chance in the foreseeable future that HDDVD/Blu Ray be supported by LMCE? My understanding from this thread is no.
Am I wrong?

Yes... in LinuxMCE-0710 there is support for HD in the form of HD-DVD and BlueRay :-)
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 11, 2007, 06:46:32 pm
just rip your hddvds and bluray to h264 and store it on a drive array.. That's what I do. For 1080p with high quality sound it works out to about 10GB per disk
Which apps do you use to rip HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, running on Linux?
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: blackoper on December 11, 2007, 07:16:49 pm

Which apps do you use to rip HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, running on Linux?
[/quote]
had to add that last caveat didn't you.. There isn't any easy solution yet native to linux. I dual boot into win XP to do it.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 11, 2007, 07:20:35 pm
Which apps do you use to rip HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, running on Linux?
had to add that last caveat didn't you.. There isn't any easy solution yet native to linux. I dual boot into win XP to do it.

Well, this is LinuxMCE, so I'm looking for a Linux solution. Preferably one to embed into LMCE for automatic conversion of my media.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: tschak909 on December 11, 2007, 07:24:27 pm
don't worry, a solution has already been done.

-Thom
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: PeteK on December 11, 2007, 08:16:50 pm

Which apps do you use to rip HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, running on Linux?
had to add that last caveat didn't you.. There isn't any easy solution yet native to linux. I dual boot into win XP to do it.
[/quote]

OK, so if one wanted to rip their HD-DVDs and Blu-ray Discs (in any O/S), what would they do?
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 11, 2007, 08:54:40 pm
Sorry guys! I did not mean to be rude to anyone. just asking questions and giving opinions. did not intend to be insulted either.
Can't we all calm down and get useful discussion here?

So my simple question is: is there any chance in the foreseeable future that HDDVD/Blu Ray be supported by LMCE? My understanding from this thread is no.
Am I wrong?

Yes... in LinuxMCE-0710 there is support for HD in the form of HD-DVD and BlueRay :-)


This is great news! What about everything which has been said above regarding DRM and so on? Will LMCE overcome that or not?

In addition what kind of CPU will be needed to tackle those DVDs?

Thanks a lot for this positive note. You made my day. ;D
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: totallymaxed on December 11, 2007, 09:32:15 pm
Which apps do you use to rip HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, running on Linux?
had to add that last caveat didn't you.. There isn't any easy solution yet native to linux. I dual boot into win XP to do it.

Well, this is LinuxMCE, so I'm looking for a Linux solution. Preferably one to embed into LMCE for automatic conversion of my media.

0710 includes software to copy HD content to the core
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: tschak909 on December 11, 2007, 09:33:30 pm
i tried to elude to that without outright saying it.

-Thom
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 11, 2007, 09:48:31 pm
This 0710 release will be epic. I sure hope there's a feature list, if not a detailed ChangeLog, so all that work gets the attention it deserves, instead of just sitting on everyone's disks (like so many MS Office features ;)). Bring it on!
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 11, 2007, 10:56:54 pm
Last question: what will be needed in terms of hardware to get this going? (CPU, LAN, GC)  ???
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Zaerc on December 12, 2007, 12:46:30 am
Last question: what will be needed in terms of hardware to get this going? (CPU, LAN, GC)  ???
Yes, you will probably need at least all three of those...  ;D
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 12, 2007, 03:22:33 pm
Last question: what will be needed in terms of hardware to get this going? (CPU, LAN, GC)  ???
Yes, you will probably need at least all three of those...  ;D

Funny  ;D
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: blackoper on December 12, 2007, 04:36:44 pm
well then it's time to buy the hddvd/bluray combo drive :)
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: totallymaxed on December 15, 2007, 10:44:27 am
Last question: what will be needed in terms of hardware to get this going? (CPU, LAN, GC)  ???

Broadly I would suggest... 3Ghz Dual Core processor, Gigabit LAN, and an nVidia 6100/6200 (or C51L on board variant) or 7050 onboard with DVI/HDMI out...
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 15, 2007, 04:17:02 pm
In addition what kind of CPU will be needed to tackle those DVDs?

The HD-DVD and Blu-Ray player HW will probably be enough to process their discs into files, nothing special from the CPU. Though until we see it in 0710, there's no way to be sure.

You can look at the wiki for hardware specs (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Hardware) and some examples of tested HW. 0710 will probably require refreshing those pages.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: cobradevil on December 17, 2007, 08:42:02 am
Well the hardware recommendations are insane.

If you do not have video acceleration then you need a heavy machine.

Video acceleration is only available for mpeg2 so with mpeg 4 the cpu needs to get it going. Also when you have a hd-dvd vc-1 or x264 then your cpu has to do al the decoding before sending it to the graphics card.

Intel is busy with a new interface called vaapi but nvidia does not anticipate in that for the moment. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi)

Nvidia does support good accelerated playback on windows interfacing with directx. So you wil have to wait until nvidia opens the api to linux.

I dont think you wanna have a dualcore machine sitting at your living room making awfull sounds. Try buying a bluray or hddvd player which you can control using lmce.

With kind regards,

William van de Velde
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 17, 2007, 09:07:10 am
Well the hardware recommendations are insane.

If you do not have video acceleration then you need a heavy machine.

Video acceleration is only available for mpeg2 so with mpeg 4 the cpu needs to get it going. Also when you have a hd-dvd vc-1 or x264 then your cpu has to do al the decoding before sending it to the graphics card.

Intel is busy with a new interface called vaapi but nvidia does not anticipate in that for the moment. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi)

Nvidia does support good accelerated playback on windows interfacing with directx. So you wil have to wait until nvidia opens the api to linux.

I dont think you wanna have a dualcore machine sitting at your living room making awfull sounds. Try buying a bluray or hddvd player which you can control using lmce.

I think that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives are available with HW decoders that can extract the discs' content to files under Ubuntu. Then there needs to be an equivalent of decss to unencrypt them. But the files resulting from that should be playable with relatively cheap HW (though HDMI 1080p output of any content isn't cheap, and maybe not available at all). This isn't much different from playing regular DVDs, which need the codecs in their players for HW acceleration that lets relatively cheap CPUs manage the playback.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: cobradevil on December 17, 2007, 09:30:14 am
Well try to play a full hd movie with your linux box without encryption and you will see that it won't playback that easily.

Sound lag video tearing. Mplayer saying your system is to slow.
(system p4 3 Ghz 1GB ram nvidia 7600GS)

With kind regards,

William van de Velde
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: blackoper on December 17, 2007, 02:14:29 pm
Well try to play a full hd movie with your linux box without encryption and you will see that it won't playback that easily.

Sound lag video tearing. Mplayer saying your system is to slow.
(system p4 3 Ghz 1GB ram nvidia 7600GS)

With kind regards,

William van de Velde


that system is too slow. My primary display box is rolling with a 3.35 ghz intel e2180 dual core and 2gb of fast ram... even the original hd-a1 from toshiba had to have 2.4ghz processor to play correctly so with overhead there is no way that 3ghz processor will cut it without some kind of hardware decoder.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 17, 2007, 04:52:22 pm
Well try to play a full hd movie with your linux box without encryption and you will see that it won't playback that easily.

Sound lag video tearing. Mplayer saying your system is to slow.
(system p4 3 Ghz 1GB ram nvidia 7600GS)

With kind regards,

William van de Velde


that system is too slow. My primary display box is rolling with a 3.35 ghz intel e2180 dual core and 2gb of fast ram... even the original hd-a1 from toshiba had to have 2.4ghz processor to play correctly so with overhead there is no way that 3ghz processor will cut it without some kind of hardware decoder.

According to some people working on drivers for MPlayer that use the PS3 Cell SPUs (DSPs), 1080p requires 3.1MBps (http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?p=61600&highlight=#61600) output, which doesn't seem to require a 3GHz dual-core.  That would offer about 1000 instructions per byte (GHz/2 * 2cores), which seems overkill considering how much each pipelined CISC instruction does in this kind of application. A 2.4GHz single-core CPU would seem to be enough, if its RAM/VRAM buses are fast enough.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: blackoper on December 18, 2007, 12:21:01 pm
my athlon 64 3700+ has frame skips with full hddvd and bluray discs. Also when I don't overclock the e2180 it also has frame skips this is with the mplayer and ffmpeg svn from about 3 weeks ago.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 18, 2007, 02:15:40 pm
According to some people working on drivers for MPlayer that use the PS3 Cell SPUs (DSPs), 1080p requires 3.1MBps (http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?p=61600&highlight=#61600) output, which doesn't seem to require a 3GHz dual-core.  That would offer about 1000 instructions per byte (GHz/2 * 2cores), which seems overkill considering how much each pipelined CISC instruction does in this kind of application. A 2.4GHz single-core CPU would seem to be enough, if its RAM/VRAM buses are fast enough.

Actually, I read that bitrate wrong. It's (claimed to be) 3.1MB per frame, not per second. So 30 fps means 93MBps, 744Mbps. 3GHz/dual is about 32 instructions per byte. If pixels are 32bit, that's about 128 instructions per byte. Still seems like plenty, but perhaps 2.4GHz/single at 12 instructions per byte is too slow. And max HDMI bitrate of 10.2Gbps seems to clearly require a dedicated video ASIC, like on an nVidia display card.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chrisbirkinshaw on December 22, 2007, 04:55:41 pm
You have to actually decode the MPEG stream... motion vectors, MBAFF, deinterlacing. etc
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 22, 2007, 05:11:15 pm
You have to actually decode the MPEG stream... motion vectors, MBAFF, deinterlacing. etc

Yes, but you don't actually run a decode loop on each byte, but rather on long run lengths in each frame. So while the brute force reduction to "12 instructions per byte is probably too slow" is possibly pessimistic, "128 instructions per byte is probably fast enough" is probably accurate. Because even operating on a few pixels at a time is probably time for more than about a thousand instructions to execute, which should be plenty, and I expect the actual amount is higher. But mere hundreds of instructions per processing iteration is probably too slow.

This kind of processing is exactly what video HW is for. Especially modern PC display chips, which are not only fast and have instructions tuned to the MPEG apps, but also have lots of parallelism. I wonder whether there's a way for a Core to harness a bank of nVidia chips to decode video into frames which aren't displayed locally, but streamed out to a relatively slow MD for display. Gonna need a fat fat LAN though.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chrisbirkinshaw on December 22, 2007, 06:18:28 pm
Hmm. Isn't that going to be like watching a movie over VNC? ;-)
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 22, 2007, 09:13:53 pm
You have to actually decode the MPEG stream... motion vectors, MBAFF, deinterlacing. etc

This kind of processing is exactly what video HW is for. Especially modern PC display chips, which are not only fast and have instructions tuned to the MPEG apps, but also have lots of parallelism. I wonder whether there's a way for a Core to harness a bank of nVidia chips to decode video into frames which aren't displayed locally, but streamed out to a relatively slow MD for display. Gonna need a fat fat LAN though.

 ???
If I may: as I am not a IT geek (but rather a professional user), I am not sure to understand: When files are stored on the core and displayed on a MD, where and how are they decoded? By the core's CPU? By the MD's CPU? or by the MD's GPU? In other words, where is processing power needed?

Sorry if my question looks stupid but I would be happy to understand. :P

Thanks
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: tschak909 on December 22, 2007, 11:25:08 pm
by the MD's CPU. The core merely serves the files.

-Thom
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: Matthew on December 23, 2007, 12:06:58 am
by the MD's CPU. The core merely serves the files.

A gigabit LAN could probably let the Core serve cheap MDs with decoded streams, maybe encoded with something really lightweight like HuffYUV (~60% as big). ffmpeg and MPlayer support HuffYUV, even a 2:1 YV12 version. The Core would have to be faster to accommodate. There's got to be a way to harness multiple videocards on the core without just using VNC, because that has no sound and has extra overhead for all the other VNC features - and the VNC client isn't really that lightweight.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: desmarch on December 23, 2007, 03:45:35 am
by the MD's CPU. The core merely serves the files.

-Thom

Thanks so much Thom for this very useful info. That was my guess. So an older Mobo with a simple Pentium IV or Athlon XP with enough memory and quick drives should do the trick.
Am I right if I say that it will be the same for tuner cards installed on the Core?
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: tschak909 on December 23, 2007, 04:25:07 pm
the same restrictions for mythtv apply for linuxmce in this respect.

-Thom
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chrisbirkinshaw on December 25, 2007, 01:09:38 pm
by the MD's CPU. The core merely serves the files.

A gigabit LAN could probably let the Core serve cheap MDs with decoded streams, maybe encoded with something really lightweight like HuffYUV (~60% as big). ffmpeg and MPlayer support HuffYUV, even a 2:1 YV12 version. The Core would have to be faster to accommodate. There's got to be a way to harness multiple videocards on the core without just using VNC, because that has no sound and has extra overhead for all the other VNC features - and the VNC client isn't really that lightweight.

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why would you want to put all the graphics hardware in the core? You can get a good selection of fanless graphics cards so I have no problem having one in my living room.

BTW there is no way to decode H.264 in linux using current display hardware.

Even a massively beefy MD cannot decode H.264 1080 content in realtime. Asking the core to do this for multiple MDs is not really going to be possible.

Chris


Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: tschak909 on December 25, 2007, 06:59:08 pm
actually, if you follow the ffmpeg lists, the issue deals a lot with the fact that x264 isn't all that optimized at all. None of it is multithreaded. This becomes especially apparent if you use CoreAVC on windows (which in its standard form does not rely on any GPU accelleration etc) which can decode a 1080p H.264 stream on a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo comfortably.

There have been a lot of commits funneling into the ffmpeg stack on this issue starting in late 2006, and there still is a lot of work left to be done.

-Thom
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: 1audio on December 25, 2007, 07:48:01 pm
H.264 playback in windows requires some serious hardware as well (or an Nvidia card and matching drivers). On my T7100 w/ Intel G965 I see 80m- 90% CPU on an H.264 HD file.

Apparently the H.264 HD files can be played with a BE2400 processor on an Nvidia card.

I had a long talk with an H.264 specialist about video processing. He pointed out that its all about multiplying bits. Each stage multiplys the bits a lot. and once its handed off to the video card its gone in terms of control. We were discussing H.264 HD playback on the Via platform. They had done a lot of work on it but confirmed that the existing hardware cannot do it. The platform needs hardware acceleration to do it.
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chrisbirkinshaw on January 29, 2008, 06:50:55 pm
Does anyone know the status of the work to get multithreaded h.264 decoding? I can find posts from 2006 which state it was added to ffmpeg but only to decode slices in parallel. This means it will not work for a recording which was not encoded with slices. The more useful way (and difficult way) is to decode frames in parallel, rather than decoding slices of one frame in parallel, however I can't see any indication of when this might be done. Apparently the x264 encoder has been changed from encoding slices in parallel to encoding frames in parallel and not using slices at all. It would seem this is the way the ffmpeg h.264 decoder needs to go. This also of course means that streams encoded with x264 will not make use of the current ffmpeg multithreaded decoding.

Until this is sorted out HDTV h.264 is really not feasible on most computers available at the moment. The drive towards lower processor speeds and quad cores is not going to help this situation in the future. And we shouldn't hold out for any help from nvidia or ati in getting GPU acceleration.

Presumably some of the integrators (Andrew?!) are following this sort of development carefully. Any ideas?

Chris
Title: Re: bluray and hddvd playback
Post by: chrisbirkinshaw on January 29, 2008, 07:04:00 pm
I suppose there's always coreavc...

http://code.google.com/p/coreavc-for-linux/