[ydl-gen] Petition to open RSX for "other OS"

[Brian Wood]

On Apr 19, 2007, at 9:01 AM, Paulo Pinto wrote:

> Sorry guys but I live in Europe.
>
> Here we only have the 60GB version at 600 euros!
> And on top of that I would need to buy a proper HDMI
> monitor as far as I know.

If you want to play "protected" HD content you would need an HDMI or  
DVI monitor that supports HDCP.

I haven't checked exchange rates (I did hear the pound just hit $2US)  
but I don't think you are going to find a BR player/Linux machine  
combo for under Eur.600 anywhere else.

I've heard rumors that Sony will stop making the 20GB unit globally.  
Really it's all I need as I just NFS mount my NAS storage and I only  
need enough local hard drive to hold the particular video I'm working  
on.

The other "goodies" you get with the more expensive unit, WiFi and a  
card reader, I don't need on that platform.

>>
>> I wouldn't exactly call the linux fast - the slow video combined with
>> a slow HD makes it about as fast as a linux I installed on a Mac 7600
>> (200 MHz 604e). I am surprised it can play HD video smoothly. Even
>> without RSX support, some use of the SPUs would be appreciated (about
>> 85% of the chip is sitting idle).

Using mplayer from the command line it plays 1080i mpeg4 files out  
the HDMI port quite well. This is with the Enlightenment Window  
manager. I've heard reports that people using KDE do not have enough  
oomph left to do this, so it's running pretty close to the edge. Top  
shows both PPUs running about 60%, but remember top is showing an  
average over time and I'm sure the actual usage is hitting peaks well  
over that.


Brian Wood
beww at beww.org