[mythtv-users] 800 MHz P3 for HDTV

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sun Mar 4 03:46:31 UTC 2007


On Mar 3, 2007, at 8:09 PM, Bob wrote:

>
> But only at 800x600 right? Also if you were building one for a PC  
> you'd
> want to make it a bit more general so it can be programed to do future
> codecs this would also allow the manufacturer to avoid having to pay
> license fees on various codecs by not shipping it with the ability to
> play anything other than free ones and letting the OS community write
> any other stuff they want.

Pretty much correct on all points, but you can add codecs to the  
unit, and converting to what it wants is pretty easy. Perhaps you  
could rig up some sort of on-the-fly transcoding the way the MediaMVP  
does MPEG4 with VLC.

>
> I'm *so* tempted by a GP2X, GP32 or a Pepper Pad, can you plug a USB
> keyboard, mouse, thumbdrive into the GP2X and use it as a laptop type
> thing?  Does your comment mean it has non-free drivers? In a perfect
> world I'd like one with Mini-DVI and S/PDIF ports so it could be a
> proper (although underpowered) mobile PC.

It does have DiVX codecs which I thought were somewhat proprietary  
(or it may just be XViD in sheep's clothing). It's getting so  
everyone is trying to change the MPEG4 stuff just enough to claim a  
patentable product and make money on it, they never seem to learn.

I bought it with an eye towards trying to use it as an SD-only  
frontend. The main problem right now is that any sort of networking  
requires bulky power-draining external devices or a connection to  
another machine via USB.

There is apparently hardware support for SDIO devices in the SD slot,  
but so far no software drivers to take advantage of that ability. If  
that changes it might be a practical portable F/E, obviously with  
limited capability but perhaps on a par with the MediaMVP or the like  
but wireless and battery-powered.



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