[Arm-netbook] Help, ARM with video composite input ?

[Pedro]

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Pedro <pederindi at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Pedro <pederindi at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:09 AM, Roman Mamedov <rm at romanrm.ru> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:46:08 +0100
>>> Pedro <pederindi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I'm looking for a single-board [1] that can make:
>>>> * input / output of composite video (analog)
>>>> * input / output of analog audio
>>>> (doesn't matter if only one jack or two, i.e. could be a input/output connector)
>>>>
>>>> The capabilities of the CPU & GPU would be to encode and decode at
>>>> real time ~MPEG2 (DVD quality)
>>>>
>>>> input / output of analog audio it's easy (a lot of single boards have it)
>>>> the difficult feature is the input at composite video (analog) !
>>>>
>>>> I only found this:
>>>> http://www.empowertechnologies.com/sbc644x.html
>>>> but it's really expensive (~700$)
>>>>
>>>> For solve this problem i'm thinking to search for "capture video card"
>>>> cheap and compatible with GNU/Linux, but this is difficult also :(
>>>>
>>>> I see that single boards (or single board + capture video card) cost
>>>> between ~50$ to ~300$
>>>
>>> You can use an USB "EasyCAP" adapter with any ARM board that has USB for input.
>>> http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Easycap
>>> It costs $10 on Dealextreme, perhaps $7 or so on Aliexpress.
>>> However in my limited testing the video quality was not too great.
>>
>> I can't loose video quality : /
>>
>>> Alternatively you can use some USB TV tuner from a "brand" name like Aver or
>>> Pinacle, probably will have a better video quality; but google around to check
>>> the state of their GNU/Linux support beforehand.
>>
>> We will see...
>>
>>> For output you can use a board that has composite video output natively, such
>>> as an A10 board or the Raspberry Pi.
>>
>> With this, I have another problem... only I know the case of Raspberry Pi:
>> It have a nice GPU, but only accessible with an API, and this make
>> limitations for final user, they can only make it run with omxplayer
>> [1]
>> This is a problem, I want this processing for receive streaming via
>> internet (IPTV). But perhaps could work [2]
>> What is sure about it, is that I have to get the MPEG-2 license.
>>
>> In other place, we have A10's GPU (thanks for share @Roman, I didn't
>> know). It seems to be more easy to manage, as is ¿"more opensource"?
>> [3] [4] (Mali 400 graphics). But I remark my intention to use for
>> MPEG-2 (not 3D rendering).
>>
>> [1] http://elinux.org/Omxplayer
>> [2] http://raspi.tv/2012/watch-encrypted-dvd-on-raspberry-pi-by-streaming-to-omxplayer
>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_%28GPU%29#The_Lima_FOSS_driver
>> [4] https://fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/operating_systems_open_arm_gpu/
>
> Sorry, I think that will be more interesting using the open format
> webm than mpeg-2 [1]
> Consider it for your potential answer
>
> [1] http://www.webmfiles.org/

An inconvenient for external capture card, ( preferred: video
composite to usb for this kind of devices), is that video have to
remain in raw, or make a lossless encoding... And that's really
difficult. I'm starting to understand why is too higher the price for
the transmissor (of the signal), receptors, are more easy.