<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Marc Randolph <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mrand@pobox.com">mrand@pobox.com</a>></span> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
"The key difference between an OMAP3530 and a desktop PC CPU like the<br>
Pentium 4 is the level of integration. The OMAP chip includes a DSP<br>
capable of H.264 4CIF resolution full duplex real-time encode and<br>
decode, something your average modern PC struggles with. Without the<br>
DSP, the OMAP would struggle too."</blockquote><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">In summary, looks to me like it should be more than capable of<br>
decoding, deinterlacing, and playing your mpeg2. Less certain about<br>
1080p H.264... but the Beagleboard is only $150, so I could probably<br>
live without that. It even has built-in HDMI! Is this the perfect<br>
front-end motherboard? If we can run in 256 MBytes of RAM, maybe so.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Marc<br>
</font><div></div></blockquote><div><br>Although the omap3 is a good chip.. (it's in the palm pre) it's not likely to make a very good frontend.<br><br>I'm fairly certain that you could get a frontend to run in 256 MB of RAM. I've run with 512 minus whatever for video ram, with no swap, and with a complicated UI theme. I'm sure with a less strenuous theme you could do it.<br>
<br>However the unlikely lack of at least 720p h.264 it's pretty much a non-starter for most. As stated previously, h.264 at 4CIF resolutions. That's only
704 × 576.. And its nowhere close to 1080i (or 1080p).<br><br>A better choice would be one of the Atom + Nvidia Ion platforms. You can get one for around $300 with a case & everything.<br><br><br></div></div><br>