H.264 codec

[ps3fan]

has anybody seen an h.264 codec for cell?
this is required to watch hdtv video on ps3.
thanks.

[Arwin]

has anybody seen an h.264 codec for cell?
this is required to watch hdtv video on ps3.
thanks.

The PS3 has one already built in, like the PSP but obviously with better resolution support. ;) So I don't know if we need to get a codec for it. I also don't know if the PS3 is using the Cell for this codec (which it could, as that's what the 4Gb/s Cell-to-GDDR3 pipeline should be useful for) or whether the RSX actually takes care of it, as it seems to have video decoding right there on the chip.

Eventually we'll probably get people who do their own Cell implementation of H.264 I guess, though it won't be easy (not just because of Cell).

[ps3fan]

according to my info you just have access to the frame buffer from within linux... so the builtin h.264 decoder is most likely of no use for us if we talk homebrew software :-(

[cheriff]

according to my info you just have access to the frame buffer from within linux..

Really? I was afaraid of this. If so, that really blows. :(

[jbit]

according to my info you just have access to the frame buffer from within linux..

Really? I was afaraid of this. If so, that really blows. :(

This is speculation. A lot of signs point to at least some form of hardware OpenGL (using E17 kinda implies this, plus some things TerraSoft have said).
Also ps3linux seems to cover the net-yaroze and ps2linux bases (for home-dev stuff), so that kinda implies some form of hardware acceleration too.
This is, of course, still speculation. Until Sony or TerraSoft say either way (or somebody gets their hands on it) we won't know for sure.

[ps3fan]

well, my info source is a sony dev... so, ...

[ayub_zar]

what have we acheived so far in ps2 programing? i mean is there any big achievement we made in ps2? or not?

[ralferoo]

using E17 kinda implies this

Man, that band really sucks... ;) </off-topic>

E17? I can't think of any E words that are 17 letters, at least not relating to hypervisors. Care to elaborate?

[urchin]

Enlightenment window manager: http://www.enlightenment.org/

They are currently working towards version 0.17

[unsolo]

make a spu decode it.

[ralferoo]

Enlightenment window manager ... working towards version 0.17

Gosh! I remember some guys trying that out about 10 years ago!

Does it need OpenGL nowadays? When I first saw it, I was impressed by all the alpha blended transparency niceness as it was something Windows couldn't do (and I think MacOS had rounded corners on windows, but not proper transparency), but it certainly didn't do anything that would need OpenGL.

[7oby]

has anybody seen an h.264 codec for cell?
this is required to watch hdtv video on ps3.

I guess you would like to have the CELL SPEs do the task instead of the inferior PowerPC part of the CELL core.

This is one solution of distributing the work among the SPEs:
http://www.hotchips.org/archives/hc17/2 ... 7.S1T4.pdf

This is a company that will implement something like that and sell it:
http://www.mc.com/mediacenter/pressrelease.aspx?id=9905

two parallel and Cell programming guides to get you started:
http://cag.csail.mit.edu/ps3/lectures.shtml
http://www.heise.de/kiosk/archiv/ct/07/ ... e_Kulturen (sorry german)

regards,
7oby