Log from #neuros IRC channel

Hopefully it will include support for the Arizona scheduler, but there were some things I haven't been able to figure out yet (I emailed crweb about them)

[15:17]

Hi all. I'm planning on submitting an application with Neuros for this year's SoC, wanted to know if I should contact someone here first or just go ahead and submit once the applications open up.

[15:24]

<MattJ>

Welcome back nerochiaro :)

[15:25]

<MattJ>

masquerade: I am sure just submitting would be fine... crweb said JoeBorn and nerochiaro are the people to speak to regarding SoC

[15:26]

nerochiaro!

[15:26]

w/b

[15:26]

masquerade: sure, feel free to submit, but it's obviously always a help if we know a bit about you beforehand.

[15:27]

JoeBorn, well, are there any questions that you have offhand that I could answer to help you out getting to know me a little? :)

[15:27]

hi everyone. i just got off of a plane, i'm unpacking baggage right now. i think just submitting is ok, but i dunno how crweb has been handling SoC stuff this week i've been off

[15:28]

what project are you interested in masquerade ?

[15:28]

Porting Theora

[15:29]

nerochiaro: forget the luggage, it's headless chicken time, full speed in circles!!!

[15:29]

masquerade: oh great, have you done any codec and/or DSP work before?

[15:29]

JoeBorn: yessir! so fast it leaves burn marks on the floor!

[15:30]

JoeBorn, I have done a little bit in the past with codecs, and I've been doing a lot in the past few weeks with the x264 codec as I am also applying there for the summer, so I am by no means an expert, but I am not a complete beginner to the topic

[15:30]

<lvwr>

hi everyone, i'm really insterested in developing the BitTorrent client for the Neuros OSD... do you guys already have something in mind about it?

[15:31]

lvwr: hello

[15:31]

lvwr: reusing some existing library for the protocol handling would be the best thing, and then doing some good frontend on it with the OSD's limitations in mind

[15:32]

masquerade: cool, another option is an x.264 port

[15:32]

<MattJ>

That would be good (hint: BBC iPlayer MP4s are encoded x. 264)

[15:33]

<lvwr>

yeah, i thought about it. I don't know neuros, you know, I live in brazil and we can't get in touch with such project.

[15:33]

hmm, I think I'd probably be more interested in porting an h264 decoder (x264 is only an encoder, but ffmpeg and similar have decoders) than a theora one, just because I am more familiar with the codec and the mathematics behind it. I haven't had the chance to research the theora stuff yet

[15:33]

<lvwr>

do you have any language in mind?

[15:34]

The other good news is that I have limited experience with ARM9 development (which I am fairly certain is the basic architecture)

[15:35]

lvwr: the OSD's GUI toolkit is QT, so at least for the GUI part you have to use that. for the backend, C is ok too. Lua is fine if you want to add some scripting abilties to it

[15:35]

masquerade: the codec won't run on the ARM directly, it would be too slow to run it there

[15:36]

masquerade: mostly you will have to deal with the TI C64x DSP processor if you work on codecs

[15:36]

<lvwr>

nice, and what are you waiting from the programmers applied? I mean, stuff like experience, previous knowledge about neuros... etc...?

[15:37]

masquerade: well a port of the h264 decoder would be neato too.

[15:38]

nerochiaro, okay, makes sense. I haven't yet looked at the specs of the TI processor linked, but a quick search showed me it does have an ARM9 on board, but I'm guessing the C64x would be the more powerful thing to use for the encoding and decoding then, right?

[15:39]

lvwr: just clear ideas on how you want to go on with your project. the more details about your proposed implementation you write in your application, the best your chances of being approved

[15:39]

lvwr: and some commitement, of course

[15:39]

<lvwr>

yeah, commitement won't be a problem. =]

[15:41]

masquerade: yes, the DSP is the suitable CPU to do encoding/decoding tasks. besides, the ARM will be used for all the rest of the processing (GUI, media framework, format parser, etc) so it will be already too busy to also do any real decoding work

[15:42]

cool, I'll do some research on the C64x then as well

[15:43]

JoeBorn, out of curiosity, is there one that would be preferred over the other? I'm very flexible

[15:44]

masquerade: well, it's an excellent question.

[15:45]

either has its advantages, since we don't have a theora decoder at all, it would really be fabulous to have something that allows playback of those files.

[15:45]

at this point, we do have some closed h264 codecs that are probably decent.

[15:47]

<crweb>

nerochiaro: welcome

[15:47]

crweb: thanks

[15:47]

VP6 I guess is another one, I don't know what that's similiar to

[15:47]

<crweb>

its been a rough, retarded week.

[15:48]

<crweb>

JoeBorn: aparently, nerochiaro is fairly important to operations..

[15:48]

crweb: i've skimmed some mails from internet cafes here and there. i've glanced some evil stuff about the PAL mess

[15:48]

crweb: quiet! He's demand concessions.

[15:48]

<crweb>

lol

[15:49]

nerochiaro: pay no heed to crweb, things went swimmingly in your absence

[15:49]

many folks came to wonder what you even do, things went so swimmingly

[15:49]

hmm, well, in that case I think I'd probably shoot for the Theora one, as I don't forsee it being too much more difficult than h264, and VP6 seems to be historically taboo. Everyone that touches it seems to get sued, with the exception of Macromedia

[15:49]

haha

[15:50]

<crweb>

nerochiaro: 4 of us spent 3 days trying to get framebuffer to reinit correctly without reboot

[15:50]

JoeBorn: i'll go back on the road then ? i think i'll get a flight to Madeira or some other more warm place this time

[15:50]

* JoeBorn mutters to self

[15:51]

JoeBorn: Scotland chilled my bones. My fingers are still defrosting

[15:52]

JoeBorn: so you may be able to beat me on typing for a day or two

[15:52]

see, I told you it was a bad idea!

[15:52]

you probably caught SARS too

[15:52]

crweb: jeez, i thouht that was already 90% done when i left

[15:52]

JoeBorn: from puffins, probably

[15:53]

<lvwr>

nerochiaro, about handling the bottlenecks, would it be better to have some user's configurations, being more flexible but being a little bit less user friendly?

[15:53]

<crweb>

nerochiaro: yeah well. nick found a stupidly retarded issue of monitor being on.

[15:53]

<crweb>

causing fb to not resize correctly without reboot

[15:53]

<lvwr>

nerochiaro, you know, i mean, which is better, a lot of features or being the most user-friendly?

[15:54]

crweb: what does monitor have to do with fb ?

[15:54]

crweb: they work on different planes

[15:54]

<crweb>

it wouldn't release the TV converter. So the tv converter kept outputing the same resolution, while the FB drew on a smaller resolution

[15:55]

lvwr: it's ok to keep it fairly basic and working well at first. too much configurability means more things can go wrong. keep it simple and good, as a start

[15:55]

<crweb>

so switch from PAL -> NTSC 640x480 would draw inside a 720x576 box

[15:57]

<crweb>

so yeah fun times. Sure we'll do some catch up after I wake up

[15:57]

<crweb>

see you all later

[15:58]

crweb: after i wake up too. later

[16:09]