VLC Media Player

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August 4th, 2006, 03:39
Runefox

VLC Media Player

Well, DCDivX hasn't been updated in years, and UDCDivX isn't much better, so it's very much time that a new player be released to support more formats than the current offerings.

So why not port an extremely portable player (which contains its own sets of codecs) over to the Dreamcast instead of doing it from scratch? Source code is available.

I'm not sure about the memory requirements, but the Win32 client seems to be using slightly over 10MB just sitting there. I'm sure that the code could be simplified slightly (no use for the extensive options menus, or GUI widgets that are used in the Windows GUI version, just the player, a listing, and a button map).

So is it possible? It would be the ultimate player for the Dreamcast if it were capable of running fullspeed (with say 320x240 video with stereo audio), and since it already runs well on many handheld devices, I'm sure it could be made to run on a Dreamcast, too.
August 4th, 2006, 10:30
Xiaopang

there's a reason why it hasn't been updated for so long. there's just no need for such a player any more. i bought my dc because it was able to play divx. it was aneat idea, because most dvd-players weren't capable of handling pictures, divx and raw-mpgeg-files

back then most of my divx-stuff was already encoded in dvd-resolution, so it didn't play anyways. today you'll hardly find 320x240 sources. i doubt that someone would reencode his own collection to a worse quality and waste time and cd-r's for stuff you've already burned.

besides, nearly every dvd-player is capable of playing divx, mpeg, and several picture formats nowadays in much higher resolutions and without skips, so why go through the trouble?

many people already switched to dvd's, which would also mean to reburn stuff, so that the dc could read it

and keep in mind, that tv-sets offer a superior quality than 5 years ago (hdtv anyone?)...would be a double setback to use lower quality video on a high quality tv
August 4th, 2006, 15:41
Runefox

And you can play NES, SNES, Genesis, and other emulators on an X-Box, too. The point is, the Dreamcast is a powerful system and it's a great console to develop homebrew for. Homebrew on the DC is always the center of attention wherever I go with the system, and if I were able to play DVD-quality DivX movies on the console, that would make it all the greater.

If the devs can take advantage of hardware acceleration with the Dreamcast (PowerVR II), video could be played back at double that resolution (640x480, DC's framebuffer / maximum resolution), assuming buffering could be done properly for it. That's just fine for most HDTV's because even DVD is currently encoded at that resolution (widescreen, 80 pixels wider; 720x480). If that's possible, all you'd need to do is crop the picture to 640x480, which would not require re-encoding.

By your definition of a reason, there's no reason to use a NES emulator on a Dreamcast because an X-Box or a PSP can do it, too. There's no reason to use a Dreamcast at all, by that logic. That's not the point of this particular forum.
August 4th, 2006, 16:06
Darksaviour69

well DCDivX is base on "Pocket DivX Player" because it resouce lite, and don't forget that OneThirty8 released a few weeks ago
http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/sho...t=27771&page=2

but can it be ported? i'm no coder ;)
August 4th, 2006, 16:13
Runefox

I recall the release OneThirty8 made, but it's still very buggy. It's something to look forward to, but MPEG / VCD isn't quite as efficient as DivX for the size of a CD. Great for little videos, or split videos, though, once the sound is synched a little better.
August 4th, 2006, 16:48
Xiaopang

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

And you can play NES, SNES, Genesis, and other emulators on an X-Box, too. The point is, the Dreamcast is a powerful system and it's a great console to develop homebrew for. Homebrew on the DC is always the center of attention wherever I go with the system, and if I were able to play DVD-quality DivX movies on the console, that would make it all the greater.

i never said that you can't emulate games on a dreamcast. the difference to high quality movies is that emulation works quite well by utilizing the dc's hardware structure which was intended to play games, not videos. look at the videos of commercial games. they are usually mpeg1-files with slightly higher vcd-resolution but still lower than svcd. and now take a look at the video players...most of them play mpegs well, because that doesn't use as much processor power, but what about divx movies? first of all 720x480 is ntsc, but what about pal (720x576)? it has a much higher resolution.

the dc is powerful, but not powerful enough to play high quality divx. read the comments in the readme's of the last version of dcdivx...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

If the devs can take advantage of hardware acceleration with the Dreamcast (PowerVR II), video could be played back at double that resolution (640x480, DC's framebuffer / maximum resolution), assuming buffering could be done properly for it.

are you guessing or do you know the structure of the dc? the powervr has no hardware acceleration for videoplayback...guess why nearly all commercial games show the softmpeg sign...

btw, a resolution of 640x480 is four times as big as 320x240. with dc-divx you were able to play hardly these well enough, no way the dc can deal with four times the load...

it's not about buffering. you have 16 MB ram. that's far suffficient for buffering a video...all dvd-players have less.
it's about decoding the picture...that's what uses processor power.

i remember when i played my first dvd-resolution videos on my 1ghz athlon....it used up all the processor power although players were already quite sophisticated. no way that a console with 200 Mhz chip can deal with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

That's just fine for most HDTV's because even DVD is currently encoded at that resolution (widescreen, 80 pixels wider; 720x480). If that's possible, all you'd need to do is crop the picture to 640x480, which would not require re-encoding.

as for the hdtv's, you can watch 320x240 material on it, too...don't compare divx to dvd... you have to use higher bitrates (around 2 Mbit)...more than most rips that are available have and you need a digital output which the dc doesn't have if you want a crisp sharp picture that's superior to crt's. if you don't, what's the point of using hdtv then? btw, i wouldn't prefere a 640x480 rip, no matter how good it might look on your pc. i have a hdtv and know that only few rips compare to the original dvd in quality.

as for the reencoding: not everybody uses 640x480...so peoples using a higher res still would have problems, as well as guys who use dvd's for storage instead of cd's

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

By your definition of a reason, there's no reason to use a NES emulator on a Dreamcast because an X-Box or a PSP can do it, too. There's no reason to use a Dreamcast at all, by that logic. That's not the point of this particular forum.

you got it wrong. not everyone has a psp or xbox, but nearly everyone has one or even more dvdplayers. so the function of playing all kinds of movie formats is already widely available...

it would be the same to ask if someone would port windows to the dreamcast...everybody has a pc, so who would use that? btw, i'm aware that a linux port exists, but that's hardly comparable

the point is: hq-divx-files will never play on a dreamcast. i'm just being realistic. i know that people want their consoles to do every little trick they can think of, like playing dvds and stuff, but this will never work. you will get low quality divx to play, but nothing with full resolution and ac3 multichannel sound
August 6th, 2006, 15:39
Runefox

Quote:

but what about pal (720x576)? it has a much higher resolution.

Uh, no. PAL is no different to NTSC in resolution for HD transmissions. Both use a 16:9 ratio, and both use base vertical resolutions of 480 (720x480), 720 (1280x720), and 1080 (1920x1080).

Quote:

the dc is powerful, but not powerful enough to play high quality divx. read the comments in the readme's of the last version of dcdivx...

DCDivX is far from being perfect, and can more than likely be optimized much further. VLC has been ported to handheld PC's and mobile phones - Which have comparable CPU's in terms of speed.

Quote:

are you guessing or do you know the structure of the dc? the powervr has no hardware acceleration for videoplayback...guess why nearly all commercial games show the softmpeg sign...

No, I do know a lot about the internal workings of the Dreamcast and the PowerVR 2. The PowerVR 2 has MPEG-2 decoding accelerated, and also includes some DVD-acceleration functions. What I meant about hardware acceleration, however, was to make use of the GPU as most PC players do, by offloading the rendering task to free up the CPU to do decoding.

Quote:

btw, a resolution of 640x480 is four times as big as 320x240. with dc-divx you were able to play hardly these well enough, no way the dc can deal with four times the load...

No, 640x480 is precisely twice as large as 320x240, and happens to be the size of the Dreamcast's framebuffer. With hardware acceleration (something DC-DivX probably didn't have), it should be much easier to achieve 640x480 capability.

Quote:

it's not about buffering. you have 16 MB ram. that's far suffficient for buffering a video...all dvd-players have less.
it's about decoding the picture...that's what uses processor power.

That's why I'm talking about using the PowerVR 2 to offload the rendering task from the CPU. That should free up a massive amount of processor time in which the DC can decode more video at any given point in time. Also remember that the decoding task isn't only the video, but also the audio, which should not be any greater a task than it is now (it's not doubling). It would be nice, however, to have 44.1kHz audio, but that's not necessary (most non-HDTV's don't have that frequency range anyway).

Quote:

and you need a digital output which the dc doesn't have if you want a crisp sharp picture that's superior to crt's

The Dreamcast does so have a digital output; It was possibly the first console ever to have it. It's called the VGA box, and if you haven't noticed, most HDTV's have DVI support; A DVI-to-VGA adaptor should do fine, as there's no discernible difference in quality from VGA to DVI. If you don't have a VGA box, one can be created from scratch and soldered to the DC's mainboard. If you've got the time and money to set up an HD system, you've got the time and money to set up a VGA box. Also, CRT is a display technology; It's what's used in computer monitors. Most often, it's sharper and more true to the original picture than an LCD or other flat panels. What you're talking about is standard-definition TV (which do, to your defense, mainly use CRT's).

Quote:

as for the reencoding: not everybody uses 640x480...so peoples using a higher res still would have problems, as well as guys who use dvd's for storage instead of cd's

What higher resolutions are there? Aside from the few Blu-Ray discs out there, there isn't any such thing as a resolution higher than that for digital video. 720x480 is not a higher resolution, but does offer widescreen (and a slightly larger amount of information). A simple crop of the picture will do nicely. Hell, it might even be possible for the PowerVR 2 to do a hardware resize on the video to fit it into the framebuffer. All that would take would be to render it to a flat 3D surface (as some PC programs do).

Quote:

the point is: hq-divx-files will never play on a dreamcast. i'm just being realistic. i know that people want their consoles to do every little trick they can think of, like playing dvds and stuff, but this will never work. you will get low quality divx to play, but nothing with full resolution and ac3 multichannel sound

High quality DivX files aren't too unrealistic. It might not be possible, but I think it's something to shoot for. It doesn't need to have AC3 multichannel, but 640x480 with stereo sound is perfect for practically everyone, even people with HD surround sound setups.
August 6th, 2006, 17:39
Xiaopang

1 Attachment(s)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

Uh, no. PAL is no different to NTSC in resolution for HD transmissions. Both use a 16:9 ratio, and both use base vertical resolutions of 480 (720x480), 720 (1280x720), and 1080 (1920x1080).

this is right for the last two resolutions, but not for 720x480. it still is 720x576, although ntsc resolutions can be used due to the fact that most settop boxes support both resolutions. i am recording digital tv-streams and they have a real pal resolution (720x576)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

DCDivX is far from being perfect, and can more than likely be optimized much further. VLC has been ported to handheld PC's and mobile phones - Which have comparable CPU's in terms of speed.

true, dcdivx is old and the divxcode itself is much more efficient today than it was before, BUT handheld pc's offer a better ground for video players since they often use a windows platform with integrated videosupport. as for cell phones i think you mean 3gp files. they have low resolutions and a very low bitrate, thus just demanding low processing power

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

No, I do know a lot about the internal workings of the Dreamcast and the PowerVR 2. The PowerVR 2 has MPEG-2 decoding accelerated, and also includes some DVD-acceleration functions. What I meant about hardware acceleration, however, was to make use of the GPU as most PC players do, by offloading the rendering task to free up the CPU to do decoding.

this might work for mpeg 1 and 2, but hardly for mpeg 4. there was that hollywood mpeg 2 decoder card that was used to decode divx videos half a decade ago, but that card needed special drivers and was the only known to being able to do this trick. if the powervr2 gpu could do this too, that would be nice, but i highly doubt it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

No, 640x480 is precisely twice as large as 320x240, and happens to be the size of the Dreamcast's framebuffer. With hardware acceleration (something DC-DivX probably didn't have), it should be much easier to achieve 640x480 capability.

LOL i knew that you would insist that it is twice as big, but it isn't. 640x240 would be twice the resolution, or 320x480. if you double width AND height of the picture you end up with four times as many pixel. i'll attach a picture just to show you what i mean.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

Also remember that the decoding task isn't only the video, but also the audio, which should not be any greater a task than it is now (it's not doubling). It would be nice, however, to have 44.1kHz audio, but that's not necessary (most non-HDTV's don't have that frequency range anyway).

i do remember, thats why i mentioned multichannel surround sound in my last post. thank god, that many files today use ac3 5.1 instead of mere stereo mp3 audiotracks. however, that might use much more processing power. although the dc can't make use of more than two channels, it would have to decode the whole ac3-stream to single out the left and right channel. that, of course, would result in a very simple stereo. to get a good sound you'd have to downmix all channels in realtime.

as for the frequency range, it does matter. many old mp3encoders cutted the frequency at 24khz and later at 32khz, because technically you can't hear higher frequencies. in fact, mp3 that utilize the full 44.1khz do sound richer and better, although as a human being you can't hear more than about 30khz max (and even that applies only to very few musicians). same goes for the equipment. few headphones do more than 30khz but still you can distinguish 44.1khz mp3 from 32khz versions...at least i can :p

btw, the frequency range doesn't have anything to do with the tv-set. if you read the specs of some hdtv's then you can see that they use the same standardized (crappy) speakers than crt's. if that wasn't the case then dvd-sound wouldn't have a frequency of 48khz. dvd was initially developed for crt's and not hdtv

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

The Dreamcast does so have a digital output; It was possibly the first console ever to have it. It's called the VGA box, and if you haven't noticed, most HDTV's have DVI support; A DVI-to-VGA adaptor should do fine, as there's no discernible difference in quality from VGA to DVI.

sorry to pop your bubble, but vga is an analog standard...nothing digital there...vga was used over 20 years ago. normal monitors are analog, otherwise they couldn't read the vga signal. ever wondered why btw, my hdtv does support vga as well as dvi. i can perfectly tell the difference between both signals due to their quality. although vga is pretty nice it only works to resolutions of 640x480, while dvi goes up to 1920x1200 (single link)...vga doesn't even compare to dvi in the slightest way. one standard is analog with a resolution that has been overcome by videostandards 10 years ago, the other is a digital standard which offers a 5 times bigger resolution.

the adaptor you're talking about would leave the signal analog. not all tv-sests support that. you'd either have to have a dvi-i or dvi-a port to utilize that signal...
furthermore, i don't trust the quality of the dc vga signal, since it's not specially processed like in other devices. as far as i know it's a derivate of the standard video signal the dc uses, so there's no advantage in signal quality. sure a monitor presents a better picture than a normal tv, but thats pretty useless if both get the same signal. don't have a vga-box to test it though...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

If you've got the time and money to set up an HD system, you've got the time and money to set up a VGA box.

thats not necessarily true. hdtv doesn't cost as much...at least not where i live. next point would be: why? my dvdplayer has true digital output and supports divx files as well as raw mpeg files...nothing the dreamcast can ever conquer with qualitywise
following your logic you should have said: if you have the time and money (btw, what has that to do with time?) to set up an hdtv-set, you also have the money to buy a high quality video player :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

Also, CRT is a display technology; It's what's used in computer monitors. Most often, it's sharper and more true to the original picture than an LCD or other flat panels. What you're talking about is standard-definition TV (which do, to your defense, mainly use CRT's).

ouch, that's so not true. my hdtv is an lcd and it's much sharper than my monitor. in fact digital displays are much sharper than any other analog display can ever be, but you'll have to own one to know what i'm talking about. before i had mine, i also thought why everyone's wild at getting hdtv since it looked terrible in the mediashops (don't know how this in canada)...but that was due to the bad signalquality they fed to the device.
in fact digital displays are more true than analog displays could ever be. i won't go into detail here. there are some fundamentals you'd need to understand. just google up adobe rgb color space and eizo cg220. if you know what the eizo cg220 is, then you'll understand why analog devices never live up as much to the reality colorwise as digital displays

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

What higher resolutions are there? Aside from the few Blu-Ray discs out there, there isn't any such thing as a resolution higher than that for digital video.

yeah, but what digital video do you mean? you don't have to rip bluray or hd-dvd discs to get hd-content. it's enough to record the digital stream that goes into your settop box. many people do, just look at doom9 how many tools you already have for that purpose. also, you can download already quite a lot of hdtv rips. i recently downloaded watched the academy awards in hd

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

720x480 is not a higher resolution, but does offer widescreen (and a slightly larger amount of information). A simple crop of the picture will do nicely.

yeah, that can boost performance

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

Hell, it might even be possible for the PowerVR 2 to do a hardware resize on the video to fit it into the framebuffer. All that would take would be to render it to a flat 3D surface (as some PC programs do).

lol yeah, but only if it has processing power left

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

High quality DivX files aren't too unrealistic. It might not be possible, but I think it's something to shoot for. It doesn't need to have AC3 multichannel, but 640x480 with stereo sound is perfect for practically everyone, even people with HD surround sound setups.

i wouldn't mind having such a player, but i would hardly use it. next thing you should consider is: what motivation should a coder have to do this job to the bitter end? the dc-coding-scene already suffers from quite some lack of motivation. most players/emus/ports are abandoned after some time without having reached perfection and despite the fact that many people use and like them. if you shoot for a something that already everybody can do with other devices (and in a much more perfect way), what motivation othr than to test your dc-coding skills would you have?

may i ask, how the idea to create such a player came into your mind?
August 7th, 2006, 14:50
Runefox

I'm not going to contest the resolution bit; I don't think in terms of actual pixel count, though that is important in this case. I usually think of double as "One pixel can be mapped as an exact double-size".

You've got VGA all wrong; You're thinking about the old VGA standard of graphics display. VGA today refers to the connection between the monitor and the video card of a computer (or between two devices supporting VGA). Resolutions in this manner can exceed 2000 horizontal pixels. High quality computer monitors, even using VGA, have been doing what HD is doing today, for many years.

As for the HD streams that go into settop boxes, what are you recording it with? What's the initial resolution? You can't record digital signals at a higher resolution than they were initially broadcast and expect it to instantly become a higher tier HD.

Quote:

ouch, that's so not true. my hdtv is an lcd and it's much sharper than my monitor. in fact digital displays are much sharper than any other analog display can ever be

Ouch, that's so not true. LCD monitors are definitely not as sharp as a good CRT, and cost astronomically more, even for a bottom-rung LCD. Ghosting is a major issue, as is the viewing angle. I personally would never buy an LCD until all of these issues are fixed to the point where LCD and CRT displays are indistinguishable.

I don't understand why you're talking about all this HD stuff; Not many people can afford it. 5.1 channel surround, big LCD widescreens, that stuff costs tens of thousands of dollars all together. A good 27" standard definition TV at $200-300 is too much for someone to go out and say "Hey, I want a TV. Gimme that one." Unless of course, they're filthy stinking rich.

Not only that, but you keep saying "Why bother, I have this"; I don't. There may not be many active devs for the Dreamcast, but again, by your logic, why bother emulating anything on the Dreamcast when you can emulate on an X-Box, a PC, or a PSP? Why bother doing anything like this?

The answer is: Because you can. Who cares if the outputs "aren't digital"? Who cares if the resolution is "only" 640x480? Who cares if there's no multichannel surround sound with THX, inline subtitles, and ten different languages?

My point is, the point behind porting *anything* to the Dreamcast isn't because there isn't something out there that can do it better already; It's because the Dreamcast is a platform that requires no modification to develop for, and because you Just Can (TM).
August 7th, 2006, 15:20
Xiaopang

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

You've got VGA all wrong; You're thinking about the old VGA standard of graphics display. VGA today refers to the connection between the monitor and the video card of a computer (or between two devices supporting VGA). Resolutions in this manner can exceed 2000 horizontal pixels. High quality computer monitors, even using VGA, have been doing what HD is doing today, for many years.

well, no didn't get it wrong. i know that vga refers to the connection type and the resolution. sure you can send high resolutions via a vga connector, but it won't be digital. please read up on some basic facts as there's no point in argueing with that. vga uses a split up rgb signal and thats not digital...

hq-monitors used vga and many still offer the possibility to use it, but better quality comes definatly with digital connections.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

As for the HD streams that go into settop boxes, what are you recording it with? What's the initial resolution? You can't record digital signals at a higher resolution than they were initially broadcast and expect it to instantly become a higher tier HD.

i'm using a digital tv-card for recording. other methods would be settop boxes with harddrives and/or lan connections to directly rip the stream to pc. i won't go into detail here. there are enough sources on the web to read up on this. digital ripping is common for years now.
i never said that i get a higher resolution than the broadcast transmitts. i said that you can download hd-rips which were digitally recorded in their nativ hd-resolution and that was possible, because the stream was transmitted in hd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

Ouch, that's so not true. LCD monitors are definitely not as sharp as a good CRT, and cost astronomically more, even for a bottom-rung LCD. Ghosting is a major issue, as is the viewing angle. I personally would never buy an LCD until all of these issues are fixed to the point where LCD and CRT displays are indistinguishable.

well, for the viewing angle your right, although that isn't so much of an issue with todays displays. as for the unsharp picture i recommend getting an lcd to test it's capabilities, rather than using mere opinions which aren't based on experience. crt's can't be sharper than lcd's since they only support dvd-resolutions, while lcd's support a up to 5 times higher resolution. if you're thinking of monitors here, even those can't compare to bigscreen lcd. there are enough professional articles about that available as well as direct comparisons. what you say was true six years ago when the first overprized plasma-tv's hit the market, but now it's completely different.

btw, i don't experience any ghosting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

I don't understand why you're talking about all this HD stuff; Not many people can afford it. 5.1 channel surround, big LCD widescreens, that stuff costs tens of thousands of dollars all together. A good 27" standard definition TV at $200-300 is too much for someone to go out and say "Hey, I want a TV. Gimme that one." Unless of course, they're filthy stinking rich.

well, no...may be in the us...but not in europe...you can get hd here for less than thousand bucks...so what?
5.1 surround sound comes with nearly every dvd and surround speakers are very common today...they don't even cost a hundred bucks if you want to get them cheap. so many rips come with 5.1 sound. if you expect a player to work with your regular movies then you won't reencode them

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

Not only that, but you keep saying "Why bother, I have this"; I don't. There may not be many active devs for the Dreamcast, but again, by your logic, why bother emulating anything on the Dreamcast when you can emulate on an X-Box, a PC, or a PSP? Why bother doing anything like this?

well ask that the coders...apparently noone is interested...as for myself i would say that other stuff such as emulators run very well compared to playing hq-divx

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

The answer is: Because you can. Who cares if the outputs "aren't digital"? Who cares if the resolution is "only" 640x480? Who cares if there's no multichannel surround sound with THX, inline subtitles, and ten different languages?

seems that a lot of people do. thats why sales on dvd-players with digital out are so good and prices so low...if you don't have a divx-capable dvdplayer....well, that stuff costs 25 bucks here, so why should anyone go through the whole trouble of using such a player? i don't know the prices in canada but i doubt that it's so much higher

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefox

My point is, the point behind porting *anything* to the Dreamcast isn't because there isn't something out there that can do it better already; It's because the Dreamcast is a platform that requires no modification to develop for, and because you Just Can (TM).

apparently this isn't the case for the coders, otherwise we would see much more complete software for dc

but apart from all that discussion, i'd like to hear the opinion of a real coder whether or not this whole project would work or not

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