What's the current wisdom on ASP chipsets?

[shae]

What's the current wisdom on MPEG4 ASP chipsets? The sticky topics aren't very up to date.

Also can anyone recommend a way to buy generic brand players (e.g. Prosound)? I'm eyeing some players that sell for nice prices but with their unknown/OEM manufacturers there's no way to know what they're capable of and there's probably no hope for firmware updates.

[SeeMoreDigital]

For playback of MPEG-4 (Part-2) ASP video I would still recommend buying a player fitted with a MediaTek chip-set...

But why do you want a hardware player that supports just MPEG-4 ASP when we now have devices that support MPEG-4 ASP, AVC, WMV9 and VC-1?

[stanjr]

If you just want an ASP player, I have one for sell on iOffer:

D-link DSM-520 (http://www.ioffer.com/i/HD-Wireless-Media-Player-D-Link-DSM-520-82693516)

The player is based off of the Sigma Designs EM8620L chipset.

[shae]

For playback of MPEG-4 (Part-2) ASP video I would still recommend buying a player fitted with a MediaTek chip-set...
Were there any new chipsets introduced in the last 2-3 years (MTK or otherwise)? My impression is that everything's stagnant with simple players, and still there's not a player that can do all the basics or anything close to that.

But why do you want a hardware player that supports just MPEG-4 ASP when we now have devices that support MPEG-4 ASP, AVC, WMV9 and VC-1?

I wouldn't mind extras, but it seems it's difficult enough finding a player for Xvid so I'm not aiming for more than that. (And right now I'm also shopping for a cheap one.)

If you just want an ASP player, I have one for sell on iOffer:No thanks. Even if it did have complete support for ASP, shipping across the Atlantic isn't a good idea.


Some questions:

Is there a way to identify chipsets without opening the case?
Are firmware capabilities usually similar for a given chipset?
Is there a player/chipset known to support all/most of the following:

>2GB files (AVI)
CQMs
Xvid GMC
>1 B-VOPs (how many?)
QPEL
Packed bitstream
Subs position control
Subs size control
Subs manual file choice
>720 pixels width (but same max MBs as DVD)
Enough bitrate (3Mbit at least, 4 would be better)
OGM + Vorbis

[shae]

Some findings after a few quick in-store tests on 5-6 players (an LG DV286 and a few cheaper nonames):

XVID

* QPEL worked on all (unless the problems were subtle).
* Packed bitstream worked on all (but if it results in slight stuttering, perhaps I didn't notice).
* I think all were fine with at least up to 3 b-frames (regardless of PB).
* No problem with CQMs (tried only one QM).
* Bitrate wasn't a problem (4.5Mbit).
* 3WP GMC resulted in periodic slowdowns on half of them (including the LG), worked fine on some, and freezes with colored blocks on one (which also had issues with 1WP GMC).

FILES

* >2GB file worked fine on some, others either stopped playing at the 2GB mark or had other issues (one player, on FF beyond x4, would stop playback immediately so I'm not sure what would happen at 2GB. Maybe it was an issue with seeking).
* Besides the LG all only showed something like 10-15 characters of the filenames.
* One player showed filenames mostly as underscores.

SUBS

* On all subs looked pixelated and ugly. Don't know if they could be repositioned or resized, probably not. Some had better default position (e.g., below instead of on video if there's room).
* One didn't render at all simple SRT subs on some files but did for others.
* I think all but one showed >40 <50 chars in a line. One had less. Some simply wrapped lines on overflow, others cropped (LG?).
* A few were capable of using an SRT in the same directory even with a different name from the AVI.