1. Home
  2. Embedded Programming
  3. Cheap, low megaherz Linux computer with embedded DSP

Cheap, low megaherz Linux computer with embedded DSP

We are seeing lots of low-cost Linux laptops latetely, most of them with sub-Gigaherz processors. These are fine for simple tasks but not for watching video and audio/video streaming and editing. I was wondering if it would be possible to team up the CPU with a low-cost DSP by altering the Linux operating system and maybe even the applicatons in such a way that you can watch MPEG2 and MPEG4 video full screen and with a minimal usage of extra power. It is well known that Intel resisted the use of co-processor DSP's in the 90's, insisting that all audio and video processing had to be done by the CPU (and they did some arm wrestling to make sure). Now that vendors have a large amount of freedom with Linux, I wonder if this would be feasible or viable.

Any thoughts?

** Posted from
formatting link
**
Reply to
Dale Harris
Loading thread data ...

Not good for editing, but they are fine for watching most video with a resolution appropriate to the screen size. My (original mobile, not Atom) EeePC chokes a bit on 1080p HD video, but then so does my desktop.

Sure, you could build a hardware accelerator co-processor, but the cost usually isn't going to be justified. Most video shown on these things is DVD quality or even youtube quality, and they handle that fine (actually youtube often looks better on the little screen than on a normal one).

What is on the market are embedded-linux-capable chips with DSP or hardware video acceleration blocks - Blackfin, various TI offerings, and maybe some of the digital camera/camcorder chips with ARM or MIPs cores could be made to run linux with or without and MMU. The issue there may be that they will do fine on video, but may choke on something more mundane such as open office (there is an ARM port, but I don't know what kind of resources are needed for reasonable performance).

Reply to
cs_posting

The original EEEPC had a 900Mhz processor which is more than capable of playing MPEG2 and MPEG4 video. Howerver, I'm thinking about ultra-low cost (< $100) laptops with 200 to 400Mhz Chinese MIPS processors which are not capable of decoding video. Add a $1 Chinese generic DSP and you can do full-screen video both decode and encode and maybe even on the fly editing, whilst consuming only a fraction of the power of a modern Intel CPU.

And another possible feature would be that you can program these DSP's on the fly and reuse it for other purposes, such as 3-D accelleration, especially shading and texturing.

** Posted from
formatting link
**
Reply to
Dale Harris

Got any links to $1 Chinese generic DSP's?

Reply to
Jim Stewart

"Dale Harris" skrev i meddelandet news:baa1f$48f5f413$ snipped-for-privacy@news.teranews.com...

It is called a Dual-core or Quad-core CPU.

--
-- 
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
ulf@a-t-m-e-l.com
This message is intended to be my own personal view and it
may or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.