> I'd assume A1222 owners would use video cards with [...] at least GCN

That's a given as it must be GCN to be 3D-supported by OS4. I can even imagine that A1222 will be sold with GCN4 cards, assuming that Polaris support will be released before or together with Tabor.

> I agree with you that we need to move to support GCN, for the low end boost.

As you know, my reasoning in favour of GCN support has nothing to do with performance :-)

> The problem that will pop up IS with video decoding.

...on OS4, yes.

> like most of the low end Qorlq Socs, no AltiVec

Actually, AltiVec is missing from all low-end, most mid-level and some high-end Power Architecture QorIQ SoCs.

> Our G5s struggle with HD video.

Depends on the actual HD resolution. At least 720p should always be fine on G5, even using only one core.

> Full screen video at 1080P resolutions on an A1222 seems virtually impossible.

Yes, with OS4 there's no way this can be done using a modern codec, no matter if played full screen or windowed.

> UVD support? I wonder how well that is documented under Linux.

I don't know, but Gallium3D seems to be a prerequisite for supporting UVD via VDPAU:

http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?post_id=91504#forumpost91504
http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?post_id=94954#forumpost94954
http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?post_id=102626#forumpost102626

>I don't know, but Gallium3D seems to be a prerequisite for supporting UVD via VDPAU:

That I wasn't aware of. So two foreign packages required, Gallium3D and VDPAU.

That explains the resistance to gpu assisted decoding.

Importing more code from the UNIX/Linux world? I don't like the idea either.

And the entire video driver library would have to be rewritten or replaced.

Interestingly I am getting about equal 1080p playback performance with local videos on my X5000/020 under AmigaOS 4.1 FE with Emotion video player and the composite comp_yuv2 output with a Radeon R9-270X and under Linux using a Radeon FireMV 2260 pciex1 in a pciex1 slot with hardware assisted video playback. I am able to playback 1080p avi and mp4 videos with frame skip enabled . 1080p mkv's are a problem for both OS'es .
720P playback is better with the same setup under Linux. Youtube videos can be streamed ok.

Cool.

At least we know the 64 bit hardware will perform reasonably well.
1080p mkv performance seems to vary from file to file on a G5, but again 720p is consistently good.

As on the A1222, its fair to say that a T10XX cpu based solution might have had issues with higher resolutions as well (although it would have some edge).

And to be a complete trouble maker, even without UVD, even limited to a single thread, a Power 9 cpu ought to be able to handle 1080 mkv files.

Hardware is where it's at for decoding video, I'm afraid. Throwing your CPU at them is a losing battle.

I've got an old media player based on a 300 MHz MIPS CPU and 90 kB of RAM, which plays 1080p videos of almost any codec, bitrate or container with its Sigma decoder chip. MKV Blueray rips? No problem, as long as the bitrate isn't insane or they don't use some weird codec like Hi10P.

The RaspberryPi can play almost all the same 1080p just fine, assuming the I/O bottleneck doesn't get in the way. The Pi 3 can handle 60 mbit bitrate 1080p video no problem. Again, due to hardware support built into the Broadcom SoC.

Same with an old Android box with an Allwinner A10 Chinese ARM ripoff I own: single core, 1 MHz, plays 1080p fine, even across a LAN; the Mali GPU does the hard work, or at least I think it's a Mali.

Software only, an i5 or even a slow i7 might struggle to play the same videos without hardware support. It's becoming ludicrous, because any graphics card or APU within the last decade should be able to play 1080p, and here we are with people running out and buying the best spec Radeons supported, that they'll never use even the basic hw codec support on.

Basically, yeah, that about sums it up.
Without full documentation of the decoding hardware we have to rely on porting an existing solution, or use the cpu.

The Pi has one of the few fully documented gpus used on an ARM cpu.
Android and proprietary Linux drivers on other systems rely on code provided by the hardware manufacturers.

Same with Windows and MacOS.

@KennyR

Even with the hardware UVD support on PowerPC under Linux there appears to be a problems with 1080p decoding . At least on the X5000/020 . I was not seeing any better performance with a Radeon HD6570 in the pciex16 slot as the FireMV 2260 in a pciex1 slot. Issue could be in hardware or software.

Under AmigOS 4.1 the higher end cards give a boost with video playback with the composite comp_yuv2 output. Also the Polaris cards have a much better composite performance for larger rectangle sized manipulations(Have not tested video playback on the X5000/020). A couple of 5% increases in performance such as the Radeon HD 3.x driver and a video card that has a better composite performance makes a big enough difference to be able to play 720P video well without altivec on the X5000/20.

Edit: I am also getting decent performance with 1080p MP4 videos .

[ Edited by Spectre660 18.06.2018 - 22:25 ]

That was an interesting 5 minutes read through the last few posts. As an end user the thought wouldn't even pop into my head that there might be a debate about how well a £1700+ computer (X5000) could play video in 4K, let alone 720p or 1080p. Frankly, I wouldn't expect there to be an issue on the cheaper A1222 either, although maybe not 4k. Fortunately I don't have any 4k screens but that won't be the situation forever. Windows is already a major pain when it comes to mixed scaling so it had occurred to me to get a 4k monitor. Of course that alone doesn't mean I need to play video at that resolution of course!

I was going to pull the trigger on a Tabor the minute they were available because I've always wanted an OS4 system but am not prepared to shell out for the X5000. This thread has certainly made me question that.

@MartinW

Unless you plan to use any Amigaoid powerpc system and OS as your only system then you should not use the video playback yardstick as the only criteria. I enjoy my Sam460ex + AmigaOS as well.

Video playback would be seen as this machines weakness.
I watch a lot of videos on this machine.
I just re encode them to a smaller xvid avi format at high bit rate using a PC and transfer them to the Sam460ex via FTP. Quality of the playback with these is excellent.
About 6 Minutes to convert a 45 minute video and can do 5 videos at a time.
The default playback quality using emotion video player on the Sam460ex is much nicer than on the basic PC setup.

>> I am able to playback 1080p avi and mp4 videos with frame skip enabled .

> Cool. At least we know the 64 bit hardware will perform reasonably well.

Probably depends on the amount of skipped frames ;-)

@Andreas Wolf

I am starting to experiment with complete videos 40+ minutes rather than just short clips.
Seem to be able to play back 1080p mp4 without frame skip enabled in Emotion video player.
Will verify and report back .

[ Edited by Spectre660 19.06.2018 - 08:56 ]

> 90 kB of RAM, [...] 1 MHz

Sounds like some orders of magnitude off :-)

> people running out and buying the best spec Radeons supported,
> that they'll never use even the basic hw codec support on.

Maybe they'll do when running Linux ;-)

> Even with the hardware UVD support on PowerPC under Linux there
> appears to be a problems with 1080p decoding . At least on the
> X5000/020 . I was not seeing any better performance with a
> Radeon HD6570 in the pciex16 slot as the FireMV 2260 in a
> pciex1 slot. Issue could be in hardware or software.

What's the CPU workload in these cases?

Quote:
Code:

> I just re encode them to a smaller xvid avi format at high bit
> rate using a PC and transfer them to the Sam460ex via FTP. [...]
> The default playback quality using emotion video player on the
> Sam460ex is much nicer than on the basic PC setup.

You mean the higher-resolution video on the PC looks worse than the lower-resolution video (re-encoded from the higher-resolution one) on the Sam460? How does this make sense?

>>> 90 kB of RAM, [...] 1 MHz

>> Sounds like some orders of magnitude off :-)

> Mem: 89736

Wow, that's impressive.

Can play this codec 1080p MP4 video back without frame skip enabled in Emotion video player.
X5000/020 AmigaOS 41.FE. Radeon HD driver version 3.6 . Radeon R9-270X video card.

(Video info Output info from Mplayer)

libavformat version 57.25.100 (internal)
libavformat file format detected.
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x56cb04c0]Protocol name not provided, cannot determine if input is local or a network protocol, buffers and access patterns cannot be configured optimally without knowing the protocol
[lavf] stream 0: video (mpeg4), -vid 0
[lavf] stream 1: audio (aac), -aid 0, -alang und
VIDEO: [MP4V] 1920x1074 24bpp 23.976 fps 1991.8 kbps (243.1 kbyte/s)
VO: [comp_yuv2] Welcome man !.
gfx_nodri = 0
gfx_novsync = 0
benchmark = 0
vsync is enabled = 1
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
libavcodec version 57.24.102 (internal)
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
Clip info:
major_brand: mp42
minor_version: 512
compatible_brands: isomiso2mp41
creation_time: 2018-06-19 11:50:14
encoder: HandBrake 1.1.0 2018040700
Load subtitles in Test:
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, floatbe, 160.2 kbit/5.21% (ratio: 20022->384000)
Selected audio codec: [ffaac] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio))
==========================================================================
AO: [ahi_dev2] 48000Hz 2ch floatbe (4 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
Movie-Aspect is 1.79:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [comp_yuv2] 1920x1074 => 1920x1074 Planar YV12
screen w 1920 h 1080 aspect 1.78:1
VO: Disabling blanker
Movie-Aspect is 1.79:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [comp_yuv2] 1920x1074 => 1920x1074 Planar YV12
Select error: No such file or directory
AmigaOS4.1 Bug select() don't reset or set errno value
[VD_FFMPEG] DRI failure.
VO: Enabling blanker

Trying to find best screen with aspect 1.78:1
(same aspect as your workbench screen)

Monitor = 0, Screen mode ID = 50161300 (1920x1080)
VO: Disabling blanker
VO: Enabling blanker
screen w 1920 h 1080 aspect 1.78:1
VO: Disabling blanker
Internal COMP YUV2 - FPS 21
VO: Enabling blanker



[ Edited by Spectre660 19.06.2018 - 09:45 ]

Quote:

Wouldn't it be quicker though just to download the lower def version in the first place?

Quote:

Not trying to rain on your parade, but I'm sure you recall our tests and discussions on AW.
You refer to mp4, but that's just a container.
Mplayer verbose readout for codec shows mpeg-4 in your posts. That's the codec.
That is a lower stress codec inside the mp4 container.
Since the majority of all 1080p are encoded with codec h264, I still think for practical purposes you should do your testing with -that- codec.

#6

I also like to boost the audio a bit so some processing would still have to be done.

Quote:

@number6

Don't worry about rain. as long as I can have Tanks in my parade too .

My MP4's codec = VIDEO: [MP4V] 1920x1074 24bpp 23.976 fps 1991.8 kbps (243.1 kbyte/s)
Can play these .This CODEC is Handbrakes default conversion settings .

Original mkv = VIDEO: [H264] 1920x1074 0bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
Cant decode fast enough. So blocky video and periodic stuttering audio .






[ Edited by Spectre660 19.06.2018 - 12:48 ]

Quote:

Hmm, I'm not sure the codec is really what is making the difference here. A video bitrate of 2000 kbps is quite low for a 1080p. I have quite a few that are 8000 kpbs - size anything from 4 to 8 GB. 2000 kbps tends to be more common for 720p (although YouTube 1080p tends to be around 2000 kpbs, to be fair).

Anyway, it looks like you're able to play the converted file because you're literally processing a quarter of the data than the original file. Have you looked at keeping the bitrate and reducing the resolution to 720p? It might look just as good yet put less strain on your graphics bus.

@KennyR

I did not notice that the bitrate was being reduced .
Will try conversion with the same bitrate .

Found one reason why my linux video playback with the Radeon Fire MV2260 card for 1080p is not so good.

H.264 decoding only supported for Radeon HD4000 and newer .
MPEG4 decoding only supported for Radeon HD6000 and newer .

@KennyR

How is this ?
Playback ok with Emotion video player .


libavformat version 57.25.100 (internal)
AVI file format detected.
[aviheader] Video stream found, -vid 0
[aviheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1
AVI: ODML: Building ODML index (2 superindexchunks).
VIDEO: [FMP4] 1920x1074 24bpp 23.976 fps 7464.9 kbps (911.2 kbyte/s)
VO: [comp_yuv2] Welcome man !.
gfx_nodri = 0
gfx_novsync = 0
benchmark = 0
vsync is enabled = 1
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
libavcodec version 57.24.102 (internal)
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
Clip info:
Software: Lavf56.36.100
Load subtitles in NTFS-USB0:
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 6 ch, s16le, 320.0 kbit/6.94% (ratio: 40000->576000)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm: pcm (Uncompressed PCM)
==========================================================================
AO: [ahi_dev2] 48000Hz 2ch floatbe (4 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
Movie-Aspect is 1.79:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [comp_yuv2] 1920x1074 => 1920x1074 Planar YV12
screen w 1920 h 1080 aspect 1.78:1
VO: Disabling blanker
Movie-Aspect is 1.79:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [comp_yuv2] 1920x1074 => 1920x1074 Planar YV12
Select error: No such file or directory
AmigaOS4.1 Bug select() don't reset or set errno value
[VD_FFMPEG] DRI failure.
VO: Enabling blanker

Trying to find best screen with aspect 1.78:1
(same aspect as your workbench screen)

Monitor = 0, Screen mode ID = 50161300 (1920x1080)
VO: Disabling blanker
VO: Enabling blanker
screen w 1920 h 1080 aspect 1.78:1
VO: Disabling blanker

Badly interleaved AVI file detected - switching to -ni mode...
Internal COMP YUV2 - FPS 0
VO: Enabling blanker


[ Edited by Spectre660 19.06.2018 - 17:09 ]