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Cell Chip Coming To the PC Via a PCI Express Card
arcticstoat writes with an excerpt from Custom PC: "After developing a brand new CPU architecture from the ground-up, you'd expect that Toshiba, Sony and IBM would have more uses for the Cell architecture than the PlayStation 3, and Toshiba has been quick to make use of the architecture's HD video transcoding abilities in its new Qosimo laptops. However, Leadtek is now taking Toshiba's efforts a step further by putting the chip onto a PCI-E card for desktop PCs. The WinFast PxVC1100 is based on Toshiba's SpursEngine SE1000 processor, which is a cut-down version of the Cell chip. The SpursEngine chip features four SPEs (synergistic processing elements) based on 128-bit RISC cores, along with H.264 and MPEG-2 codecs, but it doesn't contain its own CPU as the chip in the PS3 does. The chip is capable of encoding and decoding H.264, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video streams in hardware."
CUDA is a matrix processor. This is a serial processor. CUDA isn't really applicable to general purpose tasks. This is. CUDA gets its power by running the same function over an array of inputs to generate an array of outputs.
Different beasts.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Most modern CPUs cannot decode 1080p blu-rays in linux. The video card has nothing to do with it, as there is no support in any linux driver for GPU assisted decoding of anything apart from mpeg2, and even that is shoddy. ffmpeg works well with two threads on dual core, but quad cores isn't buying much right now.
Low bitrate 1080p rips on the net are not the same quality nor difficulty.
Yes, a dual/quad core super-fast intel setup can do it (and the mythtv list has a big thread right now about what it takes for full blu-ray rips) but right now those machines are expensive and loud.
This card could be perfect for people making HTPCs who want a low power and QUIET computer to watch on their TV using myth/etc.
-in linux, no. only mpeg2 decoding
-in any OS, not really. There is a brand new ENCODER for h.264, but reviews show it to be crap and limited
Windows does have full GPU decoding of h.264 with modern nvidia (not sure about ATI, but it is likely), but that's it.
Probably. We already have enough information about the CELL processor on its own to make use of it under Linux; this card is just taking a cut-down CELL and tacking a PCIe bus on it.
Unless they purposefully fucked the register table to prevent it, it's probably just a matter of finding the correct PCIe offsets to access known registers/segments on the CELL. While it's possible they could "sabotage" it to prevent the first-day-out-of-the-box Linux driver, chips modified this way usually have to go under more steps of formal validation again (beyond that of just throwing a PCIe controller on, and sheering a few SPUs off), so most companies won't do it.
Before we get too confident, though, there is a history of this kind of intentional fucking. Conexant acquired some video IP from a defunct company Brooktree, the BT8x8 model, which worked fabulously under Linux, which they re-released with virtually unchanged functionality, but with a completely revamped address table. Brooktree was more friendly and released the specs for its chips to the public, so the Linux driver was fantastic. Since Conexant would not release the new specs without an NDA (and is generally is Linux's bane when it comes to hardware), it took months to get the new driver back to the shape that the old one was in (and IIRC, it was only after someone stepped forward and went under the NDA to do so).
Mercury had a PCI-e cell expansion card for over a year now.
Unlike the leadtek one, the mercury version has the full version of the cell processor, with 8SPEs. Dont think it comes with any prebuilt codecs though.
Actually, if your video is encoded with the DivX encoder, the PS3 will play it. It's only when the video is encoded by one of the "compatible" codecs do you run into issues. And, it might play them okay.. Sometimes not.
I have a few profiles set up in my various encoding apps, so I always get good DVD (with AC3) Rips for the PS3 and I can always convert downloaded videos/movies if necessary (usually not.)
The PS3 isn't as flexible as a PC for a media player but it's instant-on and it's pretty darned good. I play media over the network via TVersity.
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