Bravo D3 to play WM9 and MPEG-4 HD

[lazyn00b]

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=347428

Note the mention of support for MPEG-4 AAC audio. Can this mean that the first *true* MP4 set top player is finally here?

[monty0815]

What is particulary interesting is the new Sigma Designs Chip, that will be used in the Bravo D3 and a number of Kiss Players, as stated in the Sigma Designs Press release here (http://www.sigmadesigns.com./news/press_releases/040107.htm).
Doesn't really say something about the mpeg4 features that are supported, but I guess they will be pretty advanced. (WM9, huh? ;-))
We will just have to wait and see until the first players surface on the market.

cheers, monty

[Doom9]

The Sigma 86xx series does MPEG-4 ASP Level 5 but without GMC. Thus with respect to MPEG-4 they are actually worse than the MTK chipsets, and probably more expensive.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by lazyn00b
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=347428

Note the mention of support for MPEG-4 AAC audio. Can this mean that the first *true* MP4 set top player is finally here? As I've reported before. There really should be reason why all current Kiss players cannot be upgraded to handle the MP4 container!

All the Kiss players incorporate the same (or improved) version of chipset that is on an Xcard than can handle the MP4 container incorporating 6Ch AAC audio with ease.

It may be time for all you Kiss player owners to bombard Kiss with emails requesting an upgrade!

And I agree with Doom9. Any new Sigma chipset is very most likely to cost more than the competition!

Cheers

[monty0815]

@SeeMoreDigital
I don't believe that it would be easy for Kiss to implement the mp4 container on a standalone. On a PC you have the (software and CPU) power to convert the mp4 format and an AAC audio file on the fly to some bitstream the xcard understands. I've heard that mp4 has a rather large segment at the beginning of the file which is used throughout the movie (Please correct me if I'm wrong on this). On the PC it's more of a driver thing to make other formats work. On standalones you don't have that processing power and only very limited space for firmware.

cheers, monty

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Monty

According to the Xcard specification it only requires a PC with the following processor power in order to run: -

Intel® or AMD-based PC with 200 MHz or higher CPU

And contrary to previous beliefs, all the audio streams (inc AAC) and video streams are processed on the card!

I reckon that the current crop of Kiss players must use a faster processor than 200MHz, so I can't believe it's a processor thing!

As for the cards software. The 'Application' software is 3.09MB and the 'Drivers/Firmware' software is just 2.03MB. So I don't reckon this would be a problem either!

As for how bits of data is stored within the MP4 container. I am sure I read something in one of bonds posts that this was not necessarily the case!

That said, it would be good to obtain a definitive answer from either Kiss or Sigma or both.

One aspect of Sigma's new chip that I would like to know more about is whether or not it can decode more than 414,720 pixels (720x576 PAL 'anamorphic frame'). As at the moment I know of no chipset that can handle high-def 'true frame' video streams?

Cheers

[bond]

according to menno the mp4 container itself doesnt need much processor power
to the big segment at the beginning: it has of course a header like all container formats, but i never heard that it is bigger compared to other containers (in fact its smaller than plain .aac files, which most of the time have an adts header)

i guess the main reason why there is no MP4 support on standalones till now are the aac licenses (as MP4 normally means aac)
but with itunes' success aac and mp4 will get more and more important and i doubt that hardware manufacturers will come around aac (also because its a modern multichannel codec)

also important to note is that the implementation of the MP4 container would be license free as the MP4 container is included in the mpeg-4 video decoding license normally

and for the rumour freaks:
there is a ("good") rumour around that next units of a known smaller hardware manu will have "full MP4 support", explicitely including the container (but maybe also with support for a known alternative container), but also aac i assume
if i understand it right this will be ESS based
enjoy guessing :D

and the political message of the day:
die wm9 die!!!

[monty0815]

Concerning the header I was referring to this statement by Darrius "Junto" Thompson:

One good example of some of this oversite is the MP4 file format. It sounds great and could be great. Try implementing it in hardware So as many of you know it is based off of QT. The MP4 file format keeps all of it's important timing data in one location\chunk, etc.. at the beginning of a file and must be indexed to achieve proper audio\video\data synch. A movie a few megs could have a couple hundered kbytes of index date. AVI although old, has simple interleaving which does not require this. So imagine having a 2 hour movie in the MP4 file format and trying to support it in a DVD\DivX type of player. What happens is for proper synch you have to keep all this index data stored in memory during playback PLUS have enough memory to handle playback (video data). The index data alone can be > 8MB and then you add in what is needed for video playback, menus, etc.. and you have a device that is going to be expensive to build because of a large memory requirement. So for the near future there is a cost problem of even building consumer devices at reasonable costs that support everything that is required for the mp4 standard. Many seem to be moving very slow and not necessarrilly thinking of the big picture which includes cost of implementation not including licensing cost and not also thinking about what users need\want at a minimum. Sorry such a long description I just wanted to list *one* example of how complex this has been and how it is not just a basic technology issue we have to try and overcome. This is just ONE example. Damn this has been tiring.... yet fun.
It can be found in this thread. (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55458)
Well, it also states that qpel could hardly be done in hardware which was just a few month before the first mediatek players surfaced ;-)

And I do believe that the decoding of the videostream is done by the sigma card, but the "demultiplexing" (if that's what you can call it) of the file is probably done by the driver software. Wasn't it the same with divx 3.11 which wasn't playable at first (as it wasn't mpeg4 compatible)? The software took care of the non-compatible parts, so that the sigma chip could decode ist. I wouldn't be surprised if it's something similar with the mp4 support.

cheers

[bond]

Originally posted by monty0815
Well, it also states that qpel could hardly be done in hardware which was just a few month before the first mediatek players surfaced ;-)exactly :D

The index data alone can be > 8MB yes if i have a 20 hourse movie perhaps
or maybe they just analysed the non spec compliant MP4 files their MP4 muxer produced :D

MP4 files have a smaller overhead than AVI, of course, as MP4 was explicitely designed to carry mpeg-4 video (in contrary to AVI)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Monty,

Well, all I can tell you is that I can play Mpeg4/AAC MP4 container files perfectly in hardware using my Sigma Xcard. So I don't really understand what Darrius "Junto" Thompson was going on about with his 'index data' statement. Maybe things have moved on since he wrote it!

Of course if Kiss decided to release MP4 compliance firmware for their range of players, Qpel and in some cases GMC will still not work.

Cheers

[monty0815]

@bond
Ok, so the large chunk was just a bad excuse...thanks for the information

@Seemoredigital
I can't say and it was just an assumption anyway, because I don't own a xcard, but if it is completely done on the chip, then I don't see why Kiss doesn't implement mp4 or even just aac audio (money would be a reason, but as there are no additional license fees involved...does the same go for aac audio?).
Or just any other manufacturer of mpeg4 players like elta or phillips.

Probably the demand isn't big enough and mpeg4 not really being the favourite child of the movie industry and therefore isn't being endorsed by it, what with all the piracy going on.

cu, monty

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by monty0815
... I don't see why Kiss doesn't implement mp4 or even just aac audio (money would be a reason, but as there are no additional license fees involved...does the same go for aac audio?).
Or just any other manufacturer of mpeg4 players like elta or phillips. It's certainly a strange one!

If it was purely down to licensing, why did Sigma include MP4 container compatibility from the date of the Xcards launch. As it's only until now (over 2 years later) that we finally have an application (in the form of Nero Recode2) that can easily generate such encodes!

Originally posted by monty0815
Probably the demand isn't big enough and mpeg4 not really being the favourite child of the movie industry and therefore isn't being endorsed by it, what with all the piracy going on. I don't think it's down to lack of demand either.

My feeling is that the MP4 container has been stuck in a 'chicken and egg' situation....

Without MP4 standalone players - software manufacturers can't be bothered creating file encoding software. And, without file encoding software - hardware manufacturers can't be bothered creating MP4 container capable standalone players!

It could well be that the movie industry doesn't like it. I just hope we don't have to wait another couple of years for the situation to be resolved!

Cheers

[Doom9]

Without MP4 standalone players - software manufacturers can't be bothered creating file encoding software. And, without file encoding software - hardware manufacturers can't be bothered creating MP4 container capable standalone players!
I think it's something else. Without MP4 content no players (both soft and hardware.. ). Now we do have a generic MP4 splitter but that took a long while. If you've been around to witness the beginning of OGM you know what it took to make the container popular: Vorbis capabilities were not enough.. it required an editing program first before everything else fell into place.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Doom9
I think it's something else. Without MP4 content no players (both soft and hardware.. ). Now we do have a generic MP4 splitter but that took a long while. If you've been around to witness the beginning of OGM you know what it took to make the container popular: Vorbis capabilities were not enough.. it required an editing program first before everything else fell into place. Editing Mpeg4 must be possible somewhere. There's a European porno channel that broadcasts Mpeg4 and you know what cheap-skates some of these outfits are....

Ha, maybe they don't bother doing any editing.....

Now where is that channel?

Oh! And the first person who says, the reason I can't find the info in one of my magazines because the pages are all stuck together, gets nominated for a strike ;)

Cheers

[Wolfman]

IMV limited knowledge, you state the xcard requires only an p2 200 and surely these new players have better (paraphrased) .. I think actually these players have dedicated DSP's rather than cpus as CPUS are too expensive.. in support chips, voltage, packaging etcetera. Their DSP's are getting better but they are still way less capable than a p2 50mhz even! Including more than a tiny amount of ram is a big deal also.

[Doom9]

Unfortunately the real specs of the new Sigma chip aren't out yet, but looking at the name, I tend to think it's an SD chip, not a HD one. All of Sigma's SD chips have an L at the end and the HD chips but I guess we'll know soon enough.

Did you note Advanced copy protection supporting Windows Media DRM, AES, DES, triple-DES, and RC4 algorithmsAm I the only one not to like the sound of this? DES is crackable, but triple-DES and AES are pretty secure. So quite frankly, I'd rather have a DVD I can backup than a high def source where I have to buy a new disc if the original gets scratched (or I can't use the movie as a source for a codec comparison).

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Doom9
Unfortunately the real specs of the new Sigma chip aren't out yet, but looking at the name, I tend to think it's an SD chip, not a HD one. All of Sigma's SD chips have an L at the end and the HD chips but I guess we'll know soon enough.

Did you note Am I the only one not to like the sound of this? DES is crackable, but triple-DES and AES are pretty secure. So quite frankly, I'd rather have a DVD I can backup than a high def source where I have to buy a new disc if the original gets scratched (or I can't use the movie as a source for a codec comparison). That's a very logical line of thinking regarding the spec of the Sigma chip ;)

As far as encryption goes... Yes, Sigma are quite keen in stating/promoting such features. Even the current Xcard chipset/firmware will not allow progressive output of PAL DVD 'macrovsion' sources!

Anyway, for all those interested in the spec of this chip. Please look below: -

The Sigma EM8620L Media Processor
The new EM8620L media processor from Sigma Designs provides a complete single-chip solution for IP video set-top boxes, DVD receivers and DVD players. The EM8620L offers a wide range of media processing functions for video decoding, audio decoding, and graphics processing based on REALmagic® HD technology, for the highest quality image possible on high definition displays. For single-chip systems, it features an on-chip RISC processor, PCI-bus, IDE controller and additional peripheral ports for supporting other subsystems. Configured with standard front-end components, the EM8620L provides a full-featured solution for advanced set-top appliances. Key features of the new EM8620L chip include:

* Video decoding of WMV9, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 streams, at HD or multi-stream SD.
* Audio DSP supports decoding of WMA9, WMA Pro, WMA lossless, Dolby Digital, MP3, MPEG-1/2 (layers 1, 2, and 3) and MPEG-4 AAC.
* Graphics processing with 2D acceleration, and 32-bit OSD.
* Advanced display processing including, programmable linear and non-linear scaling, 5-plane video mixer, adaptive de-interlacing, adaptive flicker filtering and pixel-based alpha mixing.
* Advanced copy protection supporting Windows Media DRM, AES, DES, triple-DES, and RC4 algorithms, as well as CSS for DVD playback.
* System-on-chip architecture with RISC CPU, unified memory controller, and interfaces for PCI, IDE, SPI, IR, UART and local bus.
* Software support under Linux and WinCE for VOD, DVD playback, PVR applications and HighMAT navigation.

"As the demand for more ubiquitous video along with high-definition features continues to increase, the popularity of new advanced CODECS such as Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series will no doubt rise," said Ken Lowe, VP of strategic marketing of Sigma Designs. "At this point, we are seeing substantial momentum toward the use of Windows Media Video 9 for IP video solutions that can deliver high-quality video streaming, as well as DVD players that can accept the widening range of video formats."

Cheers