Boxee and D-Link think Tegra 2 right out of the Boxee

[DavidC1]

Palliot, it can decode TWO 1080p streams totalling 90Mbps.

[Palliot]

Originally Posted by DavidC1

Palliot, it can decode TWO 1080p streams totalling 90Mbps.

Where does it say that? Cant seem to find any hard specs on that cpu. Decoding 2 1080p streams is not the same as decoding 2x45 Mbps. A 1080 stream can be far lower (iirc youtube 1080 is like 4 Mbit or so).

[DavidC1]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/13/b...00-pre-orders/

At a rendezvous in San Francisco, Avner Ronen told us the decision to abandon Tegra 2 was about performance and nothing more: "The major problem we had with the Tegra 2 was support for high-profile HD playback," he said. "You can do high-profile VC-1 with Tegra 2, but not H.264." It was a problem of bitrate, he told us, and while NVIDIA's dual-core Tegra T20 was apparently not up to the task, the team had internally tested Intel's CE4100 decoding streams at up to 90 megabits per second

Intel Atom CE4100 specifications: http://www.wpgholdings.com/epaper/US...215/255874.pdf

2xH264 HP

Update:

It says its actually 2x H.264 HP L4.1. According to wiki Level 4.1 is 62.5Mbps

[integrated]

Originally Posted by DavidC1

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/13/b...00-pre-orders/



Intel Atom CE4100 specifications: http://www.wpgholdings.com/epaper/US...215/255874.pdf

2xH264 HP

Update:

It says its actually 2x H.264 HP L4.1. According to wiki Level 4.1 is 62.5Mbps

So CE4100 is a decoding beast!

Could a Bobcat compete here for embedded jobs?
Could an 80-shader UVD2 (?) device decode like that?
AMD GPUs support displayport but what about HDMI 1.4?

Anand couldn't disclose power consumption/heat dissipation, but only hint that it looked hot.

[DavidC1]

If you go to my link, it says the power consumption is 7-9W.

[Palliot]

Thanks for that.
A bit overkill, but I suppose more decode capability than tegra makes sense for that market (not sure if x86 does tho). And 7-9W is a lot compared to moorestown, if that is what its based on, but should be possible to cool passively in a device of that size I think.

Anyway, wonder why they didnt go with something like
http://www.ziilabs.com/products/processors/zms08.aspx
from the getgo. Seems a bit silly to design a box, the software and when its all done, throw it away and start over on a different architecture because you suddenly realize you want the ability to play back >10 Mbps.

[Kurumin]

The unit which was demonstrated at the 2010 CES did have a Tegra 2 SoC inside. Things were looking good, and the unit was slated to go into mass production towards the end of Q2.
[...]
The shift from Tegra 2 to CE4100 delayed the mass production to the middle of Q4, but that was inevitable once Tegra 2 had to be replaced.

Oh Tegra, is there anything you can't make better? Just look at the huge list of Internet TV Tegra-Powered Products. Whenever, wherever... whatever

[Hive]

Hi everyone.

Arstechnica has a nice article about the upcoming Boxee Box and guess who's Tegra2 got thrown out and replaced with an Atom?

...The Boxee Box is a hardware set-top box built by D-Link and tailor-made to run Boxee's HTPC software. It was first announced as a collaboration between Boxee and D-Link late last year, and in January both companies announced that the device would be built on NVIDIA's Tegra 2 ARM-based platform. However, due to performance concerns for H.264 high-profile decoding, the platform was switched to Intel's Atom CE4100 SoC—the same processor that powers the upcoming Google TV platform.

"The major problem we had with the Tegra 2 was support for high-profile HD playback," Boxee CEO Avner Ronen told Engadget. "You can do high-profile VC-1 with Tegra 2, but not H.264."...

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...-pre-order.ars

At least this time it isn't about over the top power usage, just plain missing features ^^

@admin/copper/granny: didn't quite know where to post it. It's an article about a SoC CPU/GPU hybrid ... we need more categories

have fun

-hive

[Zucker]

Originally Posted by Kurumin

Oh Tegra, is there anything you can't make better? Just look at the huge list of Internet TV Tegra-Powered Products. Whenever, wherever... whatever

That link really hit home.... the advent of the death of a company.

[redpriest]

Another great victory for the Dear Leader!