[gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Grant]

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Which of these would be the best choice for Gentoo?  I have a Beaglebone
but now I'm looking for something with video for HD playback.

- Grant

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Re: [gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 10:59:28 -0800
Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:

> Which of these would be the best choice for Gentoo?  I have a
> Beaglebone but now I'm looking for something with video for HD
> playback.
> 
> - Grant

I'd say none of them (yet).

It doesn't matter what other features in the form of fancy IO and neat
circuitry is put on such boards, they are all limited by what the CPU
can do. If the board has a RealTek chip, it;s limited by what the
RealTek dev software provides.

I have a Raspberry Pi, and doing what it was designed to do is
something it is very good at. It was designed to teach kids how to
program. It was not designed to play full HD video.

The Pi suffers with playback the very same way all the other ARM media
players out there suffer, whether they be AC Ryan, Medi8ter, Xtreamer
or whatever - as soon as you have to run some controlling software as
well as the codec, and especially if you have to decode audio on the
device (as opposed to having the amp do it in hardware), it stutters.
The cpu just cannot cut it.

The next generation of ARM chips and software are reputed to be beefed
up to deal with this very issue, and Google will turn up many valid
opinions about this. Meanwhile, you can get it to work, just be aware
things are not 100% there yet (for reasonable definitions of "there"
starting with 720p).

The cheapest solution by far and the easiest to get working is a
Raspberry Pi and an OpenElec built for it. You need one 30 bucks Pi,one
HDMI tv and one ultra cheap SD card and you are good to go ;-)



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Grant]

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> > Which of these would be the best choice for Gentoo?  I have a
> > Beaglebone but now I'm looking for something with video for HD
> > playback.
> >
> > - Grant
>
> I'd say none of them (yet).
>
> It doesn't matter what other features in the form of fancy IO and neat
> circuitry is put on such boards, they are all limited by what the CPU
> can do. If the board has a RealTek chip, it;s limited by what the
> RealTek dev software provides.
>
> I have a Raspberry Pi, and doing what it was designed to do is
> something it is very good at. It was designed to teach kids how to
> program. It was not designed to play full HD video.
>
> The Pi suffers with playback the very same way all the other ARM media
> players out there suffer, whether they be AC Ryan, Medi8ter, Xtreamer
> or whatever - as soon as you have to run some controlling software as
> well as the codec, and especially if you have to decode audio on the
> device (as opposed to having the amp do it in hardware), it stutters.
> The cpu just cannot cut it.

That's too bad.  I thought the GPU on at least some of these boards was
capable of smooth 1080p playback.  The Pandaboard ES claims "Full HD
(1080p) multi-standard video encode/decode" but I suppose that doesn't mean
it's stutter-free.

http://pandaboard.org/content/pandaboard-es

- Grant

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Re: [gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 12:43:38 -0800
Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > Which of these would be the best choice for Gentoo?  I have a
> > > Beaglebone but now I'm looking for something with video for HD
> > > playback.
> > >
> > > - Grant
> >
> > I'd say none of them (yet).
> >
> > It doesn't matter what other features in the form of fancy IO and
> > neat circuitry is put on such boards, they are all limited by what
> > the CPU can do. If the board has a RealTek chip, it;s limited by
> > what the RealTek dev software provides.
> >
> > I have a Raspberry Pi, and doing what it was designed to do is
> > something it is very good at. It was designed to teach kids how to
> > program. It was not designed to play full HD video.
> >
> > The Pi suffers with playback the very same way all the other ARM
> > media players out there suffer, whether they be AC Ryan, Medi8ter,
> > Xtreamer or whatever - as soon as you have to run some controlling
> > software as well as the codec, and especially if you have to decode
> > audio on the device (as opposed to having the amp do it in
> > hardware), it stutters. The cpu just cannot cut it.
> 
> That's too bad.  I thought the GPU on at least some of these boards
> was capable of smooth 1080p playback.  The Pandaboard ES claims "Full
> HD (1080p) multi-standard video encode/decode" but I suppose that
> doesn't mean it's stutter-free.
> 
> http://pandaboard.org/content/pandaboard-es
> 
> - Grant

I had the same disappointment. I suppose 1080p is a rather variable
quantity - a konsole in 1080p is not exactly the same thing in terms of
computing requirement as Transformers3 :-)

But what the heck, get yourself a Pi anyway and run OpenElec on it.
Improvements are constantly being made to the code, you might find it's
acceptable for your needs. And besides, it's always a thrill getting
that tiny little pcb running something useful.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Grant]

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> > That's too bad.  I thought the GPU on at least some of these boards
> > was capable of smooth 1080p playback.  The Pandaboard ES claims "Full
> > HD (1080p) multi-standard video encode/decode" but I suppose that
> > doesn't mean it's stutter-free.
> >
> > http://pandaboard.org/content/pandaboard-es
> >
> > - Grant
>
> I had the same disappointment. I suppose 1080p is a rather variable
> quantity - a konsole in 1080p is not exactly the same thing in terms of
> computing requirement as Transformers3 :-)
>
> But what the heck, get yourself a Pi anyway and run OpenElec on it.
> Improvements are constantly being made to the code, you might find it's
> acceptable for your needs. And besides, it's always a thrill getting
> that tiny little pcb running something useful.

I think the Pandaboards actually can play 1080p video back smoothly as long
as hardware video decoding is enabled.  I've found several threads with
some Ubuntu users saying they can't get it to work and others indicating
that it works for them.  Here's one from February:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/pandaboard/WMi6iwEutX4

- Grant

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Re: [gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Grant]

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> > > That's too bad.  I thought the GPU on at least some of these boards
> > > was capable of smooth 1080p playback.  The Pandaboard ES claims "Full
> > > HD (1080p) multi-standard video encode/decode" but I suppose that
> > > doesn't mean it's stutter-free.
> > >
> > > http://pandaboard.org/content/pandaboard-es
> > >
> > > - Grant
> >
> > I had the same disappointment. I suppose 1080p is a rather variable
> > quantity - a konsole in 1080p is not exactly the same thing in terms of
> > computing requirement as Transformers3 :-)
> >
> > But what the heck, get yourself a Pi anyway and run OpenElec on it.
> > Improvements are constantly being made to the code, you might find it's
> > acceptable for your needs. And besides, it's always a thrill getting
> > that tiny little pcb running something useful.
>
> I think the Pandaboards actually can play 1080p video back smoothly as
long as hardware video decoding is enabled.  I've found several threads
with some Ubuntu users saying they can't get it to work and others
indicating that it works for them.  Here's one from February:
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/pandaboard/WMi6iwEutX4
>
> - Grant

Apparently the Raspberry Pi can play 1080p videos with omxplayer:

http://www.brianhensley.net/2012/07/how-to-get-1080p-videos-running-on-my.html

"Omxplayer is a video player specifically made for the Raspberry PI's GPU"

http://elinux.org/Omxplayer
http://gpo.zugaina.org/media-video/omxplayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGUIePe32Bo

- Grant

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Re: [gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 17 November 2012 20:03:04 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> I have a Raspberry Pi, and doing what it was designed to do is
> something it is very good at. It was designed to teach kids how to
> program. It was not designed to play full HD video.

I'm interested to know whether it would be good as a network appliance. 
Specifically, a NAT gateway machine between LAN and the Big Bad World. Of 
course it would need a USB network interface.

Do you have an opinion on this idea?

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Beagle vs. Panda vs. Raspberry on Gentoo

[Grant]

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> > I have a Raspberry Pi, and doing what it was designed to do is
> > something it is very good at. It was designed to teach kids how to
> > program. It was not designed to play full HD video.
>
> I'm interested to know whether it would be good as a network appliance.
> Specifically, a NAT gateway machine between LAN and the Big Bad World. Of
> course it would need a USB network interface.
>
> Do you have an opinion on this idea?

I'm sure it would make an excellent network appliance.

- Grant

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