[theora-dev] Next step of Hardware Theora

[André Costa]

Hello,

First of all, I would like to say that my work that I wrote in the other
email would be to do in hardware the functions: CopyRecon, LoopFilter and
UpdateUMVBorder. These are modules that Leonardo had made, but it wasn't ok
in FPGA. When I had a chat with Leonardo we were thinking in rewrite these
module for to do this running in FPGA (to debug in a Hardware level is much
more difficult, sometime is faster rewrite the code). But, Leonardo
discovered the mistakes on ExpandBlock and in the integration of modules in
FPGA. The result is that all these modules are running in FPGA and don't
need to be rewrite.

Current State of Theora Hardware
http://www.students.ic.unicamp.br/~ra031198/current.JPG

Well, now I need to change the line of my project on GSoC. I wrote some of
tasks that are necessary to have a Hardward implementation of Theora.

1 - Integration with a processor (Nios vs Leon)
http://www.students.ic.unicamp.br/~ra031198/integration_processor.JPG
We will need to compile the initial part of Theora in a processor and after
to do a integration with the Hardware modules. For this, we will need to
choose the processor. Stratix II (FPGA Altera) have a good support to NIOS.
The alternative of a nonproprietary processor could be the LEON, but I think
it maybe demand pretty much work to do run.

2 - To do a SDRAM controller.
http://www.students.ic.unicamp.br/~ra031198/sdram_controller.JPG
I think it is most important of all the tasks, because the current theora
hardware can just have a maximum resolution of 280x210. I don't how much
hard it will be to do this. Tomorrow I will have a chat with a professor
from my university in order to discuss it.

3 - To do a video controller.
http://www.students.ic.unicamp.br/~ra031198/video_controller.JPG
This will be a module after the UpdateUMVBorder (function in Hardware). It
will be the "player", the module in hardware that will put the images on
video. I will talk with Leonardo, because it seems that He want to do this
module.

4 - To finish the ReconRefFrames and to do other function that is before
ReconRefFrames (could be the UnPackVideo).
http://www.students.ic.unicamp.br/~ra031198/reconrefframes1_unpackvideo.JPG
The code that is before the ExpandBlock() in the ReconRefFrames isn't in
Hardware. I could to this part in Hardware and maybe to do also the
UnPackVideo.
The problem with UnPackVideo is because has a lot decison (if's and else's),
I think it better to do in a processor.
What do the function dsp_save_fpu() do? (it is betweet the UnPackVideo and
ReconRefFrames)

5 - To put the current Hardware Theora of old for new VP3 codebase.

Timothy told me about the old and new VP3 codebase, but I am a little
confused.
I read the vp3-format.txt and I saw that theora/doc/vp3-
format.txttheora-old/doc/vp3-
format.txt are the same file.
In don't know If i am understanding something wrong. In the specification of
Theora, I saw the "VP3 Compatibility", but this shows the differences
between original VP3 and the Theora Specification. What are differences
between new and old VP3 codebase that timothy said to me? is there any
document that shows the differences?
Felipe Portavales and Leonardo Piga used the libtheora-1.0alpha6 in the
reference model of Hardware Theora. is libtheora-1.0alpha6 using the new or
old codebase?


So, I thinks the most important task is the SDRAM controller, but the
Integration with a processor and video controller are also important. What
do you think that would be nice to me to do in the SOC?

Timothy, if you prefer, tomorrow i will enter on IRC and we can discuss
this.

Thanks,

André Costa

-- 
André Costa
Gerente Técnico
Projeto BrazilIP
LSC IC-UNICAMP

Cel: + 55 13 9201 1870
http://www.brazilip.org.br/
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