Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
kickstarter.com
Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#2What kind of hardware is this that makes it usable for encoding/decoding mpeg2/h264/h265? Is this something that should be exposed as a general programming target instead of a set of video specific APIs?
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#3What kind of hardware is this that makes it usable for encoding/decoding mpeg2/h264/h265? Is this something that should be exposed as a general programming target instead of a set of video specific APIs?
As you can see from the documented reverse-engineering of the hardware here:
http://linux-sunxi.org/VE_Register_guide
the device is generally single-function for each codec, with the decoding pipeline implemented in actual hardware. Unless you were able to express your kernel as a data transform used in a common video codec and express your I/O data as pixels, you're unlikely to accelerate a general purpose task this way.
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#4What kind of hardware is this that makes it usable for encoding/decoding mpeg2/h264/h265? Is this something that should be exposed as a general programming target instead of a set of video specific APIs?
It's a DSP firmware turned into silicon. If you look at for example the VP8 decoder registers for a Rockchip VPU here:
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/8118991/
You can see it's quite specific to the primitives the codec needs. If you want general purpose, we now have Vulkan for that.
(And this one is reasonably low-level. On some like the Raspberry Pi, you throw bitstream over the wall to a coprocessor which gives you YUV back)
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#5Why do more work on mpeg-2?
Couldn’t that path just be left without acceleration, being it’s a less complex codec to begin with, usage is not growing, and the data sources are likely smaller to begin with (no 4k for example)?
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#6Why do more work on mpeg-2? Couldn’t that path just be left without acceleration, being it’s a less complex codec to begin with, usage is not growing, and the data sources are likely smaller to begin with (no 4k for example)?
It's still useful for some applications. ATSC digital broadcasts in the U.S., for example, are in MPEG-2, as are the signals provided by many cable companies. I have an HDHomeRun Prime, and purchased the MPEG-2 HW Decoder license[1] for my Raspberry Pi 3 to make things a bit smoother.
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#7Allwinner would be pretty foolish not to fully fund this endeavour (including stretch goals). They couldn't do it themselves this cheap. They'd make up the costs in new sales faster from FOSS-minded devs in no time flat and they'll have minimal recurring dev costs in the long run.
To me this is a no-brainer.
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#8Allwinner would be pretty foolish not to fully fund this endeavour (including stretch goals). They couldn't do it themselves this cheap. They'd make up the costs in new sales faster from FOSS-minded devs in no time flat and they'll have minimal recurring dev costs in the long run. To me this is a no-brainer.
> "Allwinner would be pretty foolish not to fully fund this endeavour"
Why would they fund it? If they saw the potential benefits, they could probably open source their own closed source drivers and avoid this Kickstarter being needed, or at the very least provide documentation to speed this work along.
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#9Allwinner would be pretty foolish not to fully fund this endeavour (including stretch goals). They couldn't do it themselves this cheap. They'd make up the costs in new sales faster from FOSS-minded devs in no time flat and they'll have minimal recurring dev costs in the long run. To me this is a no-brainer.
> "Allwinner would be pretty foolish not to fully fund this endeavour" Why would they fund it? If they saw the potential benefits, they could probably open source their own closed source drivers and avoid this Kickstarter being needed, or at the very least provide documentation to speed this work along.
If I were Allwinner, I'd be quite nervous about open-sourcing my code. Who knows what patents it infringes?
Re: Allwinner VPU support for the Linux kernel
#10Why do more work on mpeg-2? Couldn’t that path just be left without acceleration, being it’s a less complex codec to begin with, usage is not growing, and the data sources are likely smaller to begin with (no 4k for example)?
It's still useful for some applications. ATSC digital broadcasts in the U.S., for example, are in MPEG-2, as are the signals provided by many cable companies. I have an HDHomeRun Prime, and purchased the MPEG-2 HW Decoder license[1] for my Raspberry Pi 3 to make things a bit smoother. [1]: http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/
Since they want to do hardware x264, are there any patent issues they'll have to deal with, or will that be included in the cost? I didn't see anything listed on the Kickstarter page.