RFC: Sony Playstation-3 the next IBM PC?

[Jan Panteltje]

I will write this, because it is a sort of funny conclusion I came to
yesterday.
It affects this groups subject, no I am not a gamer, do not have a ps2 or
xbox no.

This is the 'train of thought':

Many people in Europe use an old PC (say K6 or Duron) as video recorder for
digital satellite TV, 'VDR' is such a project, and I have done some
( http://panteltje.com/panteltje/dvd/ ) of similar stuff myself.
Now HD Television is here, and the first transmissions have started.

The issue is, you can easily record these HDTV streams, it is only 12Mbits /
second here, but the H264 encoded movies will not playback on a simple PC,
you would need either a (currently) high end graphics card with H264
acceleration (ATI 600$ and up), and then upgrade to PCI express for these
cards... And to a better processor, and H264 needs equivalent of dual P4
3.2 GHz without acceleration, so then you do not need that card....
The other catch is everything is going to HDMI interface with the monitors.

All many $$$ to upgrade.
So I investigated several possible path to do this as cheap as possible.

The last one was a close look at the Sony Play-station-3 specs.
Now that has 2x HDMI out, s-video too, Ethernet in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PlayStation_3#Hardware_specifications

And it runs Linux it seems.

So in theory one could use the cheap boxes that already exist for recording
TV, stream the 12Mbits H264 over ethernet to the play-station-3, and, as that
can decode H264 even in 180 progressive, interface in HDMI to the TV.

Then I realized that I could perhaps also use the PS3 as server, as it
would be on the LAN anyways that way, and can run my web and FTP server.

Then I realized that as it should be able to run X it should also be able to
run my applications, StarOffice, newsreader, what not....
Also it is small and silent and fits the ever growing integration concept,
gives me some interesting games....

I do not have one, but sure am interested to get my hands on one now.
Then I realized IBM sold the PC business to the Chinese, why sell something?
You no longer need it, because you have something better,.

IBM is making all Cell processor stuff available to Linux developers (I
downloaded it some time ago).

Then it hit me:
IS Sony PlayStation-3 the next IBM PC?

 

[The little lost angel]

The issue is, you can easily record these HDTV streams, it is only 12Mbits /
second here, but the H264 encoded movies will not playback on a simple PC,
you would need either a (currently) high end graphics card with H264
acceleration (ATI 600$ and up), and then upgrade to PCI express for these
cards... And to a better processor, and H264 needs equivalent of dual P4
3.2 GHz without acceleration, so then you do not need that card....
The other catch is everything is going to HDMI interface with the monitors.

Can I question this part? I am quite sure my friend played back a H264
HDTV clip on my laptop a few weeks back. It was a couple of hundred MB
for just a few minutes worth of a MTV (I'll try to check with him if I
catch him). I certainly don't consider my 1.7Ghz laptop anywhere near
the equivalent of a Dual P4 3.2Ghz with a hardware accelerated H264
graphics.

So without the neeed for a new platform, I think a relatively entry
level PC will do the trick of being a Linux based server/media center
and even game machine.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Can I question this part? I am quite sure my friend played back a H264
HDTV clip on my laptop a few weeks back. It was a couple of hundred MB
for just a few minutes worth of a MTV (I'll try to check with him if I
catch him). I certainly don't consider my 1.7Ghz laptop anywhere near
the equivalent of a Dual P4 3.2Ghz with a hardware accelerated H264
graphics.

As usual, there is a vast difference in the amount of power it takes to
encode it vs. to decode it. Jan was talking about using it as a PVR kind
of project.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

IBM is making all Cell processor stuff available to Linux developers (I
downloaded it some time ago).

I think IBM does mean you to use H264 (i.e. Super-MPEG-4) with the Cell
processor. It was one of Cell's marketing hotpoints: streaming video.

Then it hit me:
IS Sony PlayStation-3 the next IBM PC?

Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it. Even Linux apps are more greatly
available on x86 than on anything else.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

The last one was a close look at the Sony Play-station-3
specs. Now that has 2x HDMI out, s-video too, Ethernet in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PlayStation_3#Hardware_specifications [snip]
Then it hit me: IS Sony PlayStation-3 the next IBM PC?

In a word: NO. Not for technical reasons, because the CPU
is more than enough and a 1080i HDTV would make a fine monitor.

The problem is psycho-social, much like what stops voice
recognition software from becoming the dominant UI. People
like public entertainment (sound, stage, TV) but like private
communications & reading. No-one likes a shoulder-surfer.

-- Robert

 

[nobody]

The last one was a close look at the Sony Play-station-3 specs.
Now that has 2x HDMI out, s-video too, Ethernet in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PlayStation_3#Hardware_specifications

And it runs Linux it seems.

So in theory one could use the cheap boxes that already exist for recording
TV, stream the 12Mbits H264 over ethernet to the play-station-3, and, as that
can decode H264 even in 180 progressive, interface in HDMI to the TV.

Then I realized that I could perhaps also use the PS3 as server, as it
would be on the LAN anyways that way, and can run my web and FTP server.

Then I realized that as it should be able to run X it should also be able to
run my applications, StarOffice, newsreader, what not....
Also it is small and silent and fits the ever growing integration concept,
gives me some interesting games....

I do not have one, but sure am interested to get my hands on one now.
Then I realized IBM sold the PC business to the Chinese, why sell something?
You no longer need it, because you have something better,.

IBM is making all Cell processor stuff available to Linux developers (I
downloaded it some time ago).

Then it hit me:
IS Sony PlayStation-3 the next IBM PC?

In a word: NO. At least not before Bill Gates' blessing in form of
Windows version for Cell/PS3 or some form of emulation as the one
rumored to be in the works for MacOS X. With all due respect to
alternative OSes of all kind, they are marginal next to Windows, and
will stay marginal for the foreseeable future. Even according to the
stats of PC sales. And almost certainly all the data on Linux PC
sales is screwed because most of these PCs end up re-formatted with
pirated Windows in a matter of days, maybe hours after the sale.

NNN

 

[Gnu.Raiz]

What resolution of h264 are you shooting for? Is it 720p, 1080i, or
1080p, what I want to know is if you can go the other route. Say stream
Blu-Ray to a Gnu/Linux box?

What I don't like is all the DRM, that is going to be with the PS3
requiring HDMI for 1080p playback of Blu-Ray, and what not. To me this
is a wait and see approach, if Sony gets this right then it could be a
must have option. If it could stream Blu-Ray over ethernet, then it
could really be a good thing.

As far as h264 playback Nvidia stated that all 6000 and up gpu's will
have h264 support with drivers. This might only be for Windows but if
true, you should be able to use your old cpu, with a 6200 or 6600
Nvidia gpu and have the same results. Now this might not work under
Gnu/Linux as we all know its the last to get driver updates, but we can
only hope.

Gnu_Raiz

 

[Jan Panteltje]

Can I question this part? I am quite sure my friend played back a H264
HDTV clip on my laptop a few weeks back. It was a couple of hundred MB
for just a few minutes worth of a MTV (I'll try to check with him if I
catch him). I certainly don't consider my 1.7Ghz laptop anywhere near
the equivalent of a Dual P4 3.2Ghz with a hardware accelerated H264
graphics.

So without the neeed for a new platform, I think a relatively entry
level PC will do the trick of being a Linux based server/media center
and even game machine.

OK, but I am talking about these kind of streams:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7797010432 Jan 8 16:01 tps_hd_demo_90_min.ts
Stream #0.0, 50.00 fps(r): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1920x1088

That I play this way:
cat tps_hd_demo_90_min.ts | super_demux -t 120 | ffplay -stats -f h264 -
and then does about 3fps on a Duron 950....
This is 12Mbit / second HD TV as transmitted here in Europe via the
Astra 1 satellite by TPS (Free to air demo).
As you can see 90 minutes (with sound) is < 8GByte, easily recorded at that
speed, but not so easily played on a cheap box 9no tat all).
Here is some reference to the required processor speed:
http://www.knc1.com/
click on the 'hier' link to get to the software requirements for that card.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

As usual, there is a vast difference in the amount of power it takes to
encode it vs. to decode it. Jan was talking about using it as a PVR kind
of project.

Yousuf Khan

No no, I was purely referring to *decoding* of the HD H264 stream.
You will find ATI has come out with some high end card (with Radeon 520 ASIC)
like for example the FX1800 (I think it is called) to make this playback
possible.
Without hardware acceleration it is not feasable even on a medium speed
processor.
So in 1920 x 1080 @50 fps as is now HDTV standard here.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

I think IBM does mean you to use H264 (i.e. Super-MPEG-4) with the Cell
processor. It was one of Cell's marketing hotpoints: streaming video.


Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it. Even Linux apps are more greatly
available on x86 than on anything else.

True.
But for any Linux app. that has the source code available, it is just a
question of recompiling.

IBM claims that all power PC apps run on the cell without change, but can
be recompiled to take advantage of the help of one or more of the 7 SPE
little 'help' processors in the Cell.

So the Cell has one power PC core, and 7 smaller processors.
One of these smaller ones can be used to decode H264 main profile.

Have a look here at the power of Cell versus normal PC processors:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cellperf/?ca=drs-#ref1

Of course having 7 extra very fast processor cores that share memory via DMA
with the main PPC is exiting

 

[Jan Panteltje]

The last one was a close look at the Sony Play-station-3
specs. Now that has 2x HDMI out, s-video too, Ethernet in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PlayStation_3#Hardware_specifications [snip]
Then it hit me: IS Sony PlayStation-3 the next IBM PC?

In a word: NO. Not for technical reasons, because the CPU
is more than enough and a 1080i HDTV would make a fine monitor.

The problem is psycho-social, much like what stops voice
recognition software from becoming the dominant UI. People
like public entertainment (sound, stage, TV) but like private
communications & reading. No-one likes a shoulder-surfer.

It has *2* HDMI outputs, and ANY of the 7 SPE can do decoding.. No
reason why one could not do the TV, and the other one a normal monitor.
It also has component out....
Maybe I misunderstood you?

 

[Jan Panteltje]

In a word: NO. At least not before Bill Gates' blessing in form of
Windows version for Cell/PS3 or some form of emulation as the one
rumored to be in the works for MacOS X. With all due respect to
alternative OSes of all kind, they are marginal next to Windows, and
will stay marginal for the foreseeable future. Even according to the
stats of PC sales. And almost certainly all the data on Linux PC
sales is screwed because most of these PCs end up re-formatted with
pirated Windows in a matter of days, maybe hours after the sale.

LOL, sees mlike Billy The Gates came ito life by buying that quick and
dirty MS DOS so IBM had an OS.

Seems to me IBM had Linux for this one in house and needs no MS.


I did realize that MS share must now head towards earth....
Because it will take him some time to port MS windows to PlayStation 3
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHOaaaaHAHAHAHA LOL hehehe
LOL

 

[Yousuf Khan]

No no, I was purely referring to *decoding* of the HD H264 stream.
You will find ATI has come out with some high end card (with Radeon 520 ASIC)
like for example the FX1800 (I think it is called) to make this playback
possible.
Without hardware acceleration it is not feasable even on a medium speed
processor.
So in 1920 x 1080 @50 fps as is now HDTV standard here.

I've run H264 video on my 1.6Ghz Athlon XP 1900+, with no problems.
However, it may not have been HD1080 resolution, I guess.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Jan Panteltje]

What resolution of h264 are you shooting for? Is it 720p, 1080i, or
1080p, what I want to know is if you can go the other route. Say stream
Blu-Ray to a Gnu/Linux box?

1080i @50fps and 1080p(perhaps).

As Linux seems to be the OS, why could one not do (assuming the drive is a
device):
cat /dev/blueray | netcat -w 100 IP_ADDRESS PORT

Use netcat at the other side to setup a listen like this first:
/usr/bin/netcat -l -p PORT | mplayer -cache 8000 -fs -

What I don't like is all the DRM, that is going to be with the PS3
requiring HDMI for 1080p playback of Blu-Ray, and what not.

Just because of this DRM If the monitor / TV is HDMI in, then
feeding 'trusted' H264 stream into the decoder in the PS3 would display.
And bypass any funny stuff.
Recording is already done in transport stream format.
There are several options available to decrypt encrypted .ts, this is BEFORE
the H264 decoding.. problem solved.

To me this
is a wait and see approach, if Sony gets this right then it could be a
must have option. If it could stream Blu-Ray over ethernet, then it
could really be a good thing.

Anything that can be accessed in stdout can be piped via netcat, anything!
Yes it is a wait and see, but I have the Cell ASM instruction set....
Where a will is is a way, only need a keyboard.... hehe

As far as h264 playback Nvidia stated that all 6000 and up gpu's will
have h264 support with drivers. This might only be for Windows but if
true, you should be able to use your old cpu, with a 6200 or 6600
Nvidia gpu and have the same results. Now this might not work under
Gnu/Linux as we all know its the last to get driver updates, but we can
only hope.

Yes, it is the X.org and Xfree thing too that plays.

I do not know if there will be Linux drivers soon.

But the final issue (and most important) is price.
If the PS3 sells for 500 (add an other 200 for hard disk and keyboard perhaps),
Then I would in fact have 8 processors (One PPC and 7 SPE) for that, plus
very high end graphics, plus installed Linux OS, plus networking and bluetooth,
plus gaming, in a nice box that looks neat on the bookshelf.
As it uses less power then a dual P4 3.2 GHz and would be on 24/7 (running
the web server), it would pay itself back too over its lifetime on electricity
costs.

 

[Grumble]

The issue is, you can easily record these HDTV streams, it is only
12Mbits / second here, but the H264 encoded movies will not playback
on a simple PC, you would need either a (currently) high end graphics
card with H264 acceleration (ATI 600$ and up), and then upgrade to
PCI express for these cards...

AFAIU, the GeForce 7300 is supposed to support hardware H.264 decode,
for less than $100. Will an AGP version be available? I don't know.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2674

 

[The little lost angel]

As usual, there is a vast difference in the amount of power it takes to
encode it vs. to decode it. Jan was talking about using it as a PVR kind
of project.

Hmm, but he was specifically talking about HDTV content which would
already be encoded so that processing burden should not be on the
computer. Hence my focus on my own memory of that playback experience.

 

[Grumble]

Hmm, but he was specifically talking about HDTV content which would
already be encoded so that processing burden should not be on the
computer. Hence my focus on my own memory of that playback experience.

According to AnandTech, H.264 can be taxing:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645&p=2

Resolution: 720p
Decoder: Quicktime 7
CPU: Athlon 64 3500+
Average use: 53%

1080p is 2.25 times (??) larger than 720p so it seems plausible that an
aging Duron cannot decode 1080p in real time.

Perhaps the decoders are not fully optimized yet?

 

[Jan Panteltje]

AFAIU, the GeForce 7300 is supposed to support hardware H.264 decode,
for less than $100. Will an AGP version be available? I don't know.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2674

Yes, just did a google search for 'GeForce 7300 GS H264' and
got >40000 hits ....
To the source:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/7_series_techspecs.html
Chip seems to support AGP, but board?
They mention Linux, Nvidia always had closed source drivers for Linux...
Cannot get a list of connectors, does it have HDMI? Dunno.

I want the play station 3.... already made a decision for myself.

Think of all the things those SPE will give you, an example:
Long time ago (DR DOS) I had this IR LED on a par port pin.
It did send IR codes to start the VCR.. to make it change channels and record.
I jumped from DR DOS (and win 3.10) to Linux, but the multi task switching
caused delays in the on / off sequence of the LED and it became
unreliable.
Open sourced it, but no longer used.

With those Cell SPEs running free from interrupts and task-switches, lots
of real time stuff should be possible (if you can find some IO pin ).
It is like having 8 (or 7) embedded processors as assistance.

And those graphics cards are power hungry....

In my view (as electronics designer) we have seen the following trend over
the last 50 years.
Tubes
transistors
chips
LSI (more chips integrated into one)
microcomputers (plus IO integrated).

The IBM PC system with its plugin boards is reaching its physical limits.
It is nice to be able to 'plug in' but the connector of today is Ethernet
(maybe 1Gbit).
The system to plug in of today is the LAN, connected to the Internet.

So it is a 'natural' to make a box with no slots to plug in, but a simple
ethernet connector, and put and much on one chip as possible.
In the case of Cell, 9 processor cores! plus some shared memory.

The consequences will be enormous.
Not only will the whole 'PCI card' industry have to change to RJ45..., MS
Windows will be out.

It may lead to a huge drop in sales for MS, and, as that is a major export
and source of income for the US, to a major dive on the world exchanges.

We see the end of an era.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

According to AnandTech, H.264 can be taxing:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645&p=2

Resolution: 720p
Decoder: Quicktime 7
CPU: Athlon 64 3500+
Average use: 53%

1080p is 2.25 times (??) larger than 720p so it seems plausible that an
aging Duron cannot decode 1080p in real time.

Perhaps the decoders are not fully optimized yet?

1920x1080 / 720x576 = 5x exactly! (going by screen surface or number of pixels).
Not even a recent Athlon can decode 1080p H264 in real time.
Only ASICS.
That is why they specify Pentium 4 #.2 GHz dual core.

I calculated I needed 25 x the Duron 950 speed.
(Because the system also has to do other things, display, write to disk,
handle interrupts, many task are normally running).

 

[chrisv]

On a sunny day (Fri, 20 Jan 2006 10:58:22 +0100) it happened Grumble

1920x1080 / 720x576 = 5x exactly!

The HDTV comparison you're looking for is 1920x1080 / 1280x720. And
even that's not right, because there's no source of 1080p, only 1080i.
Converting a 1080i source to 1080p requires no processing, only the
temporary storage of the alternate scan-lines so that the image can be
displayed all at once. So, the REAL comparision, as far as processing
power is concerned, is 1920x1080x0.5 / 1280x720, which is very close
to being the same thing.

Note that the above is a bit over-simplified, but it does correctly
illustrate that 720p is really not "easier" than 1080i (or "1080p"
derived from 1080i).