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ATI Releases Linux Developers Kit
gravis777 writes, "Well, apparently ATI once again makes noise in the Linux market when they anounced yesterday that they had just released a developer's kit to support video hardware decoding (specifically for MPEG, MPEG2 and DVD) for Linux on their Rage 128 and Rage 128 Pro chips. " The new kit they are touting will "provides a software interface between the iDCT and motion compensation video acceleration of the ATI
RAGE 128[tm]-based accelerators, and MPEG-2 and DVD video playback formats."
Does the software/hardware enforce zones, or is it zone-free? The press release makes no mention of this that I saw other than to say that the driver is released binary only for DVD security (probably required by their DVD licensing agreement) while the playback software will be open source (why couldn't they just make a plugin for xanim?).
And of course the other real question is was it a _Cuban_ cigar?
One of the few things I've wanted for Linux has been the ability to make use of hardware MPEG-2 decoders. Most video cards produced in the past couple of years (that I've seen) have had some sort of Mpeg acceleration built in. What I hadn't seen is software that took advantage of it under Linux. Kudos once again to ATI!
One thing that does concern me is the DVD playback features in the devel kit. Does this mean that ATI is standing behind the Linux side of DeCSS? Or do they have a builtin decoding key for playing DVD's? Considering most people these days just want to be able to watch the Matrix and such on their computers like all the WinX users out there, I think either way ATI's definatly hit on something.
They mention in the article that 'well known software developers' will be privy to their SDK, but what about the rest of us? I'd like to see it turn into a set of kernel or X hooks myself to support both ATI and other video card producers (Matrox, CL, etc.)
-Dysan2k
-What have you contributed lately?
I've tried to get here from .fi starting form 10am GMT...
... to the non-developer masses who use Linux? Will this translate into end user apps any time soon?
IBM released their VIA-Voice SDK many months ago, but I am still to see a single useful application come out of it. Not even an announcement of a project trying to use it.
Is this what is fated for this SDK as well???
Let me get this straight... does this mean I'll actually be able to play DVD's in a conventional manner (without DeCSS) in Linux? I sure hope so, because I will soon be buying an ATI All in Wonder 128 and a DVD drive. I assumed I would have to boot into windows to view the DVD's properly, since MPEG playback is very shoddy on my machine.
This makes me very happy... now I can code and watch Anime at the same time.
Whee hee.
-- Neil
indierock / punkrock band photos and more... http://www.digitaldefection.net
They seem to be suing everyone these days.
I just got a rage 128 based AIW 128 now If I could only get the video card working in X with out all my fonts being screwed.
And what about 3d support for this chip under linux?
Right now I'm stuck using windows 98 because I want to beable to play quake 3.
God, root, what is the difference?
ATi has _the_ best integrated DVD decoding of any multifunction card on the market right now. I own an ATi 128 All-in-Wonder card and its a very good card for my Linux machine. It is lacking an opensource driver but the binary one from SuSE works great. (http://www.suse.de/en/support/xsuse/). The driver is also present in lastest XFree as well (I think it's also opensourced).
The only other thing you need to make your ATi complete is the TV.... get gatos (General ATI TV and Overlay Software ATI-TV) at http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/
With this SDK we'll be able to combine all these features + DVD into one driver.
Awesome! I only wish other comps. did this... (*cough* nVidia *cough*)
--
GroundAndPound.com News and info for martial artists of all styles.
This announcement also confirms ATI's pursuit to become the Linux community's Number One graphics vendor after years of giving it the finger.
This is good news. A little late though. Does any one know if the Voodoo3 3500 mpeg playback is supported under linux?
>does this mean slashdot is working again??
>What the hell happened?
Go away Simon....
Does this mean I should buy an ATI card now? I am looking to get a new video card for my system. I need support for linux in a good card. Although I don't want to buy a card simply for that reason. I haven't a need for cable-readiness, but wouldn't turn my head to a card with it. Any suggestions?
The VHA is designed for the Rage 128 and 128 Pro adapters. The VHA will consist of a kernel module and a user level library and will give developers access to idct and motion compensation capabilities of these chipsets. This is not a DVD player, or even an MPEG 2 player, but rather it will allow DVD and/or MPEG 2 players take advantage of ATI hardware for accelerated playback. The SDK will include some sample code for MPEG playback though. The reason this has to be binary is so that 3rd party DVD player developers can link in this library into their DVD player and protect CSS encryption. We are going to work with Loki to incorporate VHA into their SMPEG library. This will give other developers a real world example of how to use the library. When this is complete, the patches for SMPEG will be released to the community. David Johnson ATI Developer Relations
The timing of this confirms my suspicion that world revolves around me. ;-) CoolerMaster has just informed me that the case I want is now available, so I am ordering a new Athlon box today for Firewall/MP3/DVD/games. (But not for hacking & internet! I'm keeping my Amiga!) The plan was to buy Matrox video stuff, but this announcement makes me hesitate.
Hmm.. If I get a ATI's stuff instead, I can have vendor-supported hardware MPEG playback very soon. The catch is that I'll be "selling out" the OSS community by accepting a binary. And there are selfish reasons to reject it too -- that binary's support could disappear at any time that ATI feels like it. Hmm.
OTOH, Matrox hasn't even gone as far as releasing a binary driver for their Rainbow Runner MPEG accellerator. Hmm.. Anyone have advice?
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I used to regret buying an ATI 128 card, due to the fact that the driver weren't too impressive (on windows and on X), but with that and the upcoming XFree86 4.0, I guess future does look bright afther all.
give me all your garmonbozia
who knows, but on my end, /. has been unattainable everyday for the last week or so.
Holy sh*t! This could be the real deal... 100% legit DVD decoding on Linux! But...
Anyone have any general opinions on the ATI all-in-wonder vs the Marvel G400-TV ?
Unless nvidia gets off thier collective asses and comes through with better commitment to the linux community, my next card is coming from ATI.
I have been a staunch supporter of nvidia for some time now but while companies like ATI and 3dfx have made firm commitments and provided resource after resource to the opensource community, nvidia hides behind waiting for XFree 4.0. With the news yesterday that 4.0 will be out in March, I will give nvidia until a short time past to follow through on thier commitment. If I can't see any measurable results, I will move over to ATI. Am I being unfair here?
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
This leads to the question of will this actually hurt the DeCSS case? I can see the lawyers now saying that now that ATI (And Sigma too) have released linux drivers there is no reason for people to use DeCSS.
Of course the reality is that ATI has limited market share at best, and Sigma has even less. But we've gone from 0% market penitration to 5-10%. My fear is that the case will go on so long that the MPAA is going to seriously twist reality on this. (Not that they haven't already) It will no longer be about lawful reverse engineering.
ANY company which suppports Linux should be applauded for it,
./ have shown. The first product to appear is certainly going to get a lot of interest. While it is certainly very important to get DVDs onto the Linux platform, it is worrying that it is only possible with COMMERCIAL SW running on a SPECIFIC graphics card.
BUT
I think it is time to realise that the times when a companies decision to support Linux was driven by some "higher" goal is starting to end.
Linux is becoming a stratetgic platform, companies are realising that getting into the Linux market will be crucial, and it will start returning a profit in the (not to distant) future.
Especially ATI has shown in the past that it does not believe in open support for its product (yes there have been some changes, but only fairly recently).
It seems that there will be a market for a Linux DVD SW player, as countless posts on
We all know the problems most commercial drivers have, when it comes to rapidly changing kernel releases, SMP, etc.
Secondly it would tie anyone who wants to watch DVD on Linux to ATI.
Thirdly, a working closed source solution might kill (or dampen) any effort to get a more open solution, as commercial partners (which seem to be necessary, given the DVD NDA constraints, etc) might fear that the market is already occupied by ATI.
Overall I believe that ATI is mainly doing a very clever strategic move, which might end up doing more harm than good to Linux as a multimedia platform.
I still hope some company will produce a CARD INDEPENDANT DVD player app, probabely with an open interface, to enable graphics card vendors to add card specific support (not absolutely necessary, as with modern processors MPEG-2 decoding can be done entirely in SW).
IMHO this would be more helpful than any graphics card dependant solution.
And lastly let's not forget that ATI only announced the SDK, I haven't heard any product announcements yet....
Just my $0.02
Frank
This sounds VERY unfair to the open source public to me. Why is a big company like ati allowed to have the dvd specifications and develop software for it, while us, the norma everyday programmers not allowed to? We have to resort to 'illegal' means' just to play out DVD's under an alternative operating system. Don't get me wrong, I respect ATI very much. In fact, I'm using an ATI card in my box right now, very happily. Mayve the MPAA will one day realize they pissed us off.... Too bad we couldn't counter sue them... of course, with todays legal system we could. (only if we were a large corporation.) Heh....
------- What exactly is real?
For apps based on ViaVoice SDK try
Xvoice - Dictation in X
http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~tdoris/Xvoice/
GVoice - Voice Commands for Gnome
http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~omega/gnome/gvoice/
KVoiceControl - Voice Comands for KDE
http://www.kiecza.de/daniel/kde/index.html
has always been a decent video card company, and has always worked well with Linux.
Like in some of the previous posts, I too regret buying ATI.
They don't look after their older customers. I noticed that this new stuff works with the Rage 128 and Rage 128 Pro... what about those of us using Rage Pro's? Instead of updating their drivers they just release a new card... which makes it very expencive for me. Free vs. paying the upgrade cost or buying a new $300(cdn) card.
I also have 8mb of vram and apparently it isn't enough for their tv card to operate normally at 1600x1200x16bit. I either have to drop down 1-2 resolutions or watch the little boxes slide across the screen.
My next 3d card will deffinatly be something along the lines of an nVidia chip or something... not an ATI.
I would certainly hope that kits are going to be available for LinuxPPC. Remember that all B&W G3's and all G4 computers ship with either a Page 128 or Rage 128 Pro, so most people running LinuxPPC on these machines have an ATI card installed.
As for everyone sayign that this weakens the deCSS case, I might agree, but there are still very strong arguments to be made - everyone who is not running a Rage 128 card under Linux.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Does anyone know if they will release this kit with PPC binaries? Or as source?
My new iMac has a rage 128 and I would LOVE to do
some more development with it.
However, I think I'll wait until I see results from ATI before buying their cards... I really like Matrox, and it seems to work better under Linux than ATI, nVidia, or 3dfx (correct me if I'm wrong!)
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
People have been begging Sigma Designs for information on their mpeg-2 playback engine, saying that there certainly can't be anything wrong with providing specs on that part of their DVD decoders. CSS is the only problem, right? And they come back and say "Well, but if we tell you how to do mpeg-2 playback, then you'll use css-cat to play DVDs, and that's illegal!" - which sounds like a strange argument to me... I think that basically, they're afraid that the MPAA will come down hard on them if they help open sourced DVD playback in any way.
But now ATI comes out with this same information... this is great. Hopefully others will follow. The whole thing just smacks of strong-arming by the DVD industry.
(See the "Question about MPEG playback on HW" thread on the video4linux archives - if you can find them. Red Hat - you host this list, why don't you archive it?)
----
CSS is handled legally by the drivers - they just call the ZivaDS (the descrambler chip) and say "unlock the drive, unlock the title, decode the data". The driver code has no knowledge of CSS secrets - they're all contained within the hardware.
Right now, the support is good - VGA overlay is working for the most part, and IFO parsing (with the exception of selecting multiple camera angles) is done, so movies like The Matrix and Tomorrow Never Dies play correctly. Chapter searching works to a certain extent as well. There's a graphical frontend (gdxr2) available.
Unfortunately, there's no support yet for Creative's newest card, the DxR3 - it has some functions in software, which have not been released by Sigma (who manufactures the decoder hardware). Maybe ATi's release of binaries for the restricted materials will spur them along...
I should read before I post...
Although the sample code will be released open source, the MPEG-2 driver will be released in binary format in order to maintain DVD security.
Since WHEN does MPEG-2 playback have anything to do with "DVD security?" Argh. The DVD Cartel must have some pretty big goons that they send around to their license holders....
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Darn darn darn! The laptop I got has a Trident chip. Well, with a P3 450 it just may be possible to watch DVD's with software decoding in Linux...
NOSPAM@REMOVETHIS.NO.SPAM - you'll find the real address somewhere
This post should be higher than those other posts. I finally know how to enable my ATI TV card :))) Thanks!!!!
As to the DeCSS comment... it wouldn't hold up in court because the ATI announcement was made after everything hit the fan. It's valid grounds for dropping the DeCSS issue (and code) with a cease&desist of hostilities, but it's not a proof for the case.
Note that Microsoft tried the same thing by saying "The market works fine!" when AOL bought Netscape during that trial... the issue was whether or not MS was being evil when the whole thing started, not how they were being during the trial (though I doubt their behaviour during the trial helped them at all...)
I see that a lot of people are confused by what video card manufacturers mean when their pretty boxes scream 'DVD Acceleration!' on them.
Most of the modern video cards on the market can convert from YUV --> RGB on the fly. This is fairly significant, because to do this in software is about 25% of the decoding process on a software DVD player. As far as I know, the only video card(s) out there that support this under Linux are the Matrox G200/G400/G400MAX cards, using the mga_vid kernel module.
There are a few cards on the market that support what is called 'motion compensation', which eases CPU usage by significant amount, also. ATi cards have, in addition to motion compensation, what is called iDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform) - which eases CPU usage by an additional 5-10%.
These features are not the same as what MPEG-2 decoders do - they do nearly all the work onboard the card, themselves, except a few things, like CSS. Sigma Designs has designed a chip that does CSS in hardware, so we might start seeing hardware decoders from them in the near future for Linux. In the meantime, the best cards to have for Linux are from Matrox. (The G400MAX SGRAM card is the best, actually, for X speed and DVD). Feel free to read the DVD Playing HOWTO for more information. Additionally, README.MGA in the X documentation talks a bit about these cards - "Makes extensive use of the graphics accelerator. This server is very well accelerated, and is one of the fastest XFree86 X servers." Because Matrox has released the specs for the cards, things are coming along real well for it (like Utah-GLX, etc.) Check the cards out!
"Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill."
They happen to have most of a MPEG2 decoder in place in the chip. This, however, doesn't allow DVD play- just MPEG2 (which translates into SuperVCDs, etc.)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
They are spending a lot of time on this complex
stuff, when all I really want is to bring up X
on my TV.
Is this possible with ANY non-Trident video card
that costs $100?
Thanks,
Mark
ATI Developer Registration
-partap
Cool, man! I've been looking for quite awhile trying to find a Linux TV Out solution. Thanks! I'll pick one up today. Mark if anyone has other suggestions, let me know. Thanks. mark@knm.org
Thanks for the info. Two questions:
1) what was required to make TV Out work as
opposed to regular VGA... did it just magically
work when you went into 640x400 mode?
2) any clue which cheap card can do this? I
don't want to shell out $125 for a 32 meg AGP
video card that is going to do 640x400.
Thanks in advance,
Mark
Hey everybody :-)
With the XFree86 4.0 coming out soon, i'm planning to upgrade my ATI 3dPro chip (All-in-Wonder) with some kewl 3d card.
What card is the best right now (for LINUX) to play Loki games, Q2/Q3, Unreal, etc?
Is it TNT2/ Voodoo 3000/ Matrox G400Max?
Which one?
------------ Internet? Is that thing still around? H.J. Simpson
Er, forget what I said about Rainbow Runner; that isn't an MPEG accellerator anyway. So if they were to release a RR driver that sped up MPEG playback, I would be quite suspicious. ;-)
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Com'on guys, don't get fooled by some good marketing guys :
ATI is just releasing an API which relies on a close-source binary module for the kernel. this will allow for MPEG2 playback. ok
Now, if you look into the kernel, you have full support for the Philips TV tuner, the Zoran MJPEG encoder chip, and MGA support in XFree86. that's full open source clean support for every parts on the Marvel card from Matrox !!
This gives you now integrated support for TV, MJPEG encoding on-the-fly, and ... as much MPEG2 playback that the G400 can support. ATI isn't even talking about supporting their MPEG2 encoding chip. geee...
Yes, Matrox has been very nice for the open source community for years. Don't expect the same quality achieved anytime soon with this new comer (ATI), especially since it's not even providing information the way Matrox is.