[Harry Muscle]

I got two quick questions about possible future features of XBMC and how which operating system it runs on might affect it.

First, is hardware acceleration (for decoding movies, etc.) limited on linux because of the linux drivers? In other words, if the developers wanted to (and had the time and resources) could they implement hardware accelerated decoding of movies on linux ... or would they be severely hindered by the existing drivers? If the drivers are the limiting factor then I'm assuming on the Windows version of XBMC this wouldn't be a limiting factor and could technically be implemented in the future?

Also if/when Blu Ray playback is added to XBMC, would it be logical to assume that it would be easier to implement in the Windows version (vs. the Linux version) since Windows is already able to play back Blu Ray movies (with other software) while nothing exists that allows you to play a Blu Ray movie on Linux (without first copying it off the disc, etc.).

Just some "what if" questions I had rolling around in my head I would love to hear an answer to.

Thanks,
Harry

[jmarshall]

No hardware acceleration of video decoding happens on any platform, so no differences.

[Rudd]

I got two quick questions about possible future features of XBMC and how which operating system it runs on might affect it.

First, is hardware acceleration (for decoding movies, etc.) limited on linux because of the linux drivers? In other words, if the developers wanted to (and had the time and resources) could they implement hardware accelerated decoding of movies on linux ... or would they be severely hindered by the existing drivers? If the drivers are the limiting factor then I'm assuming on the Windows version of XBMC this wouldn't be a limiting factor and could technically be implemented in the future?

Technically hardware acceleration is somewhat limited on Linux. I believe there is only limited driver support for video acceleration APIs such as Xvmc. It's still possible to do hardware acceleration using the graphics API(such as my project), however it isn't the most pleasant or ideal solution.

And yes, Windows does have better driver support for video acceleration in the form of DXVA. However, XBMC's dvdplayer uses libavcodec to decode its videos. So it would be up to the libavcodec team to implement DXVA support for us to take advantage of it's acceleration capabilities.

[zAo_OSX]

We will get better drivers in time. My fist guess would be the intel driver for the G45 chipset (which has video accel). After the driver is released, the discussion will be applicable IMO.

[Gamester17]

@Harry Muscle, please search (all forums) before posting in the future!, see:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=31630
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33802
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=31350
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33323
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=34138
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=1843

[BLKMGK]

The Blu-Ray question is a pretty good one. Right now there's no software other than two commercial packages that can do the Blu-Ray menus etc. for playback. I don't know where VLC etc. stand on this but we're a long ways off from being where we are with SD DVDs! I do not know if the format is documented well enough for someone to even try for menus even if the Crypto wasn't in the way. The crypto is a PITA and they keep changing it with BD+ - mangling the DVD format too for that matter. IMO right now it's best to rip, consider compressing, and then playback from servers. You lose menus, extras, and sometimes soundtracks though. I CAN say this method works great if yuo don't mind the things you lose DVDs I store complete however and am looking forward to torublefree playback of those on XBMC!

[Gamester17]

@BLKMGK, Blu-ray discussion => http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=31630