I'm sorry, I normally consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but could someone explain what "access arbitration" is, how it relates to this discussion and what it has to do with my future N900 dying in a fire?
The DSP (Digital Signal Processor) in the N900 is ensentially a co-processor which handles the chores of decoding video and sound streams (in this context). It's very much more efficient then having the main CPU do the same chores. But there is only one DSP and there isn't standard driver/process which controls access to it. That's the access arbitration that's needed.
The dying in a fire it more a metaphore of overdriving the DSP which might led to a catastrophic chip failure. In the past very extreme failures of chips have been the chip literal catching on fire. It's very doubtful the N900 could literally get that hot. Well unless the LION battery went kablooey.
The dsp would error out on one or the other if it failed. This would happen if multiple gstreamer based processes used it too, so no different. I don't mind only having GStreamer but if others want mplayer/vlc let them do the work to get the dsp stuff working.
I vaguely recall some rumors that this would rather cause a device reboot than a mere failure of GStreamer, although I never checked (I wouldn't even know how to do that quickly). But even in the latter more optimistic scenario, we should expect quite nasty usability problems and bugs.
Also, I would not be surprised that the DSP would have some further limitations of its own.
Last, if the DSP can decode it, then gstreamer can decode. Then I don't know if there is much added value for DSP on Mplayer or VLC. Then it might be difficult to find a motivated, skilled, and free enough person to do the work
I'm sorry, I normally consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but could someone explain what "access arbitration" is, how it relates to this discussion and what it has to do with my future N900 dying in a fire?
Access arbitration just means a way of mediating or dealing with multiple users of a common resource. The implication here being that if two different media apps try to use the dsp at the same time, the overload and/or collision between data streams would cause harmful effects. Whether that's a realistic concern or hyperbole (exaggeration), i don't know.
Last, if the DSP can decode it, then gstreamer can decode. Then I don't know if there is much added value for DSP on Mplayer or VLC. Then it might be difficult to find a motivated, skilled, and free enough person to do the work
Well, the reason I'm interested is that VLC's streaming capabilities have been more mature than gstreamer's on the last few versions of Maemo.
Perhaps this is changing, however. I notice that gstreamer now has an http sink available, although I haven't attempted to use it yet...
Well, the reason I'm interested is that VLC's streaming capabilities have been more mature than gstreamer's on the last few versions of Maemo.
Perhaps this is changing, however. I notice that gstreamer now has an http sink available, although I haven't attempted to use it yet...
if you need streaming, i have flumotion working on the n900 and that uses gstreamer and python and twisted. i am porting the UI to be hildonised. if you want i can push a non hildonised pkg to extras-devel
I've gotten some flv's to play after getting the extra codec package, but I still have videos that don't play. And some were downloaded using my various Symbian devices, and they played just fine. But my device has been acting funny, so maybe it was the firmware. I'm reflashing as we speak. Hope it works out ok.
. But even in the latter more optimistic scenario, we should expect quite nasty usability problems and bugs.