[mythtv-users] Myth on WD HDTV Media Player for $99

[Jean-Yves Avenard]

2009/10/12 Brian Wood <beww at beww.org>:
> By a "full" OS I was comparing standard Linux distributions to embedded
> systems thast require a lot less in terms of hardware, can run with very
> little RAM and little power. The Sigma chips are used with a lot of embedded
> systems, I'm not aware of any way to utilize VDPAU with an embedded system,
> though I'd love to hear of one.

Are sigma available for Linux and MythTV, how is that relevant to the
context of this discussion?

Most of the embedded system I've seen, especially set topbox, use
powerpc based core with full hardware decoding

> I thought it required the proprietary nVidia video drivers (ie: the binary
> blob) in order to use VDPAU, at least today.

currently the only vdpau drivers available are from nvidia.
but the vdpau libraries themselves are open source, and any
manufacturers is free (and encouraged) to provide drivers for them

> Do you mean ATI (owned by AMD) and Intel will build VDPAU-capable hardware?
> Maybe, but by no means certain.

they already are "vdpau" capable, that is can do hardware decoding of
most content already.
Would just need to provide a vdpau API, this is well documented, the
ball is in their court.

Both Intel and ATI have introduced their own vdpau-like interface, but
with the advance made by nvidia being the first, I think it would be
wiser for them to drop what they are doing and join the vdpau
bandwagon

In the mean time VDPAU isn't half-baked as you implied, it does what
it does very well, and provided it's comes on video cards designed for
PCs, of course it's going to require a full fledged-OS and video
drivers...
How else could it work differently