XBMC Gains Crystal HD 1080p Decoding Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: XBMC Gains Crystal HD 1080p Decoding Support

A few days ago XBMC 9.11 was released, but there is already new code that has hit their mainline code repository that will make the next release even more exciting already. Committed to the XBMC SVN trunk repository last night was support for Broadcom's Crystal HD hardware decoding ASIC. With the Broadcom Crystal HD hardware decoder (a.k.a...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=Nzg0OQ

[AndreAPL]

This Broadcom chipset will only be available in pci-ex/express slot? What about the (old) pci (2.0)?
Any idea about the price tag? (obviously for pci version)

[box of rox]

Any chance of getting your hands on this decoder and comparing the performance in an ordinary system to +vdpau, +broadcom, and +vdpau+broadcom (if possible)?

I'm also curious if it's possible to decode multiple HD videos (at least 2) concurrently?

[kozaki]

Thank you Phoronix this is an excellent news
XBMC media center's really nice to use, and adding an external decoder open new opportunities (along with Nvidia Vdpau).
As box of rox quoted, it'd be very nice to get some real life benchmark results, including Hauppage decoder if possible.

@AndreAPL: "Users in the USA can purchase the Crystal HD mini PCIE card from Logic Supply for $69 at the time of this posting, and of course there’s always ebay for those outside the USA."

[n0nsense]

This Broadcom chipset will only be available in pci-ex/express slot? What about the (old) pci (2.0)?
Any idea about the price tag?

~20 USD on ebay

[sreyan]

The kernel driver might be GPL but the firmware is still under broadcom's license. Will mainstream distributions include the firmware and have support out of the box?

[benmoran]

I guess this is the same "special IC" that was in the Pegatron ARM netbook prototype.

Good on Broadcom for releasing an opensource driver.

[sreyan]

I guess this is the same "special IC" that was in the Pegatron ARM netbook prototype.

Good on Broadcom for releasing an opensource driver.

Is this then the chip also used by the genesi Efika mx?

(http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/efika)

When I emailed a fellow there they talked about gstreamer support with a closed driver.

[tettamanti]

Hopefully Broadcom will do the next step and push the driver upstream; the ioctl interface probably needs to be reworked, but for the rest the driver is in a good shape.

[AndreAPL]

~20 USD on ebay

If so, it would be great, i have a thinclient, and with a toy like this could finally see HD/FullHD