[Famaku]

VPU = video processing unit
If I'm not mistaken.

[Khivar]

Isn't it a synonym of GPU then ?

[Starstream]

Arm chipsets are system on chips so everything is contained within one chip. In this case the VPU is part of the chipset but not part of the GPU like it is on PC GPU's for instance. The VPU only handles hardware accelerated decoding of videos nothing else. The Broadcom CrystalHD card you can install in a PC would be another example of a VPU (which is also supported by XBMC).

[j1nx]

What does "VPU" stand for ?

Like Famaku already mentioned.

Video Processor Unit, which is basically a small SEPERATE part of the chip in the SoC which will take care of the video decoding. So in short to be complete;

CPU = Processor
GPU = Video processor (like you video card)
VPU = video decoder chip

If XBMC uses the GPU the menu's are smooth, when it also uses the VPU the video are smooth as well. IF not is has to fall back on NEON, which are just some special CPU instructions helping the CPU a bit to do the work, but you can imagine the CPU of most android devices can not cope with stuff above SD material.

[s7mx1]

Don't think the hardware acceleration is included in the public git repository. Doing compiling at the moment. The default target is optimized for cortex-a9 which is what amlogic 8726 based on.

[rere34lm]

http://xbmc.org/theuni/2012/07/13/xbmc-for-android/

Will post a video of XBMC running on the Mini X when I get home from work. The GUI is snappy as hell!

Hey! Why not wake me up for this! That's bloody awesome! The XBMC Android page misled me, It progresses from 0 to 100 in a night !

I knew XBMC can do it ! I proud of you guys !

I got an Amlogic 8726m1 based box same as the one in the XIOS DS, Could I benefit the HW decoding, or it just for XIOS DS box ?

[Khivar]

@j1nx : Oh okay thank you for clearing that up, basically the decoding chip is not embedded in the GPU unlike desktop AMD/Nvidia/Intel GPUs. Thought it was inside the Mali-400 ! Didn't know that was also called a VPU though, that's kind of ambiguous since it's also a synonym to GPU.

Edit :

Arm chipsets are system on chips so everything is contained within one chip. In this case the VPU is part of the chipset but not part of the GPU like it is on PC GPU's for instance. The VPU only handles hardware accelerated decoding of videos nothing else. The Broadcom CrystalHD card you can install in a PC would be another example of a VPU (which is also supported by XBMC).

Sorry missed your post ! Okay that confirms what I just said up there, thanks

[Reed Solomon]

Well now... this is delightful news. I own a PIVOS AIOS which works tolerably but obviously won't run this. Should be fun to get XBMC running on my Mele a1000 though.

[CHRONiC YOUTH]

Great work guys! Looking forward to having a fully functional mk802 mini home theater/pc haha bring on the hardware acceleration and mouse/keyboard support!!!

[Tann San]

@Tann San, you need the audio patch:
see HERE
at least you hear something

Thanks for that, I copied the apk to a memory stick and then used the File Browser to install it. When the install finishes you have to click Open and then press select on the word Patch which is actually a button, then it works. If you just do the install and don't do the Open->Patch bit it won't work. You'll know you've done it right because you'll get a message about the Patch being successful. That got me audio in all the files I tested through SPDIF although it is still only stereo. For now though I'm happy with that as it still means I can watch all the things I've had stacking up. Thank you

[Nu7s]

I'm almost sorry I have to leave for holiday tommorow to England. But it will be the first thing I do when I get back! Great work!

[j1nx]

I had high hopes, for my Mele A2000 box but i will be selling mine very soon, as i really don't think it will be a fully working solution with XBMC, even in the next 6 months.

I hope you didn't sold it yet. You might want to wait and see which way the android version is going.

[Ribuck]

J1nx, not it's not sold yet, but I really can't see any a10 other than the pivios getting hardware acceleration any time soon. Whilst it's good news in some sense, I think it's bad news in others. I know gimli has put in a lot of hard work, but xbmc devs working for a sole manufacturer just feels like a bit of a conflict of interest and goes against the ethos of xbmc bing open source, as I would imagine that they have agreed with pivios not to work on other competitor platforms like mele so that the pivios can remain exclusive and sell lots of units.

Just feels like they have sold out to the highest bidder as it were, and have left the rest Of us a10 owners in the dark, which doesn't feel right especially when they have had other boxes like the mele etc donated, but have deliberately not developed for them and strung people along whilst all the time in the background secretly working on the pivios.

No doubt I'll probably get flamed and kicked from the forum for the comments, or the post will be deleted and that's fair enough As I had to express my view.

As a message to gimli & xbmc team, I mean no disrespect and I know you guys work hard and I do appreciate your hard work as I use xbmc on my pc, so please don't take my comments as a personal attack as they aren't meant to be, I am just expressing my feeling about the hardware acceleration being done for a sole manufacturer which I don't agree with for a open source app.

[Sebert81]

Well I hope that the Mele A2000 and similar devices will be supported one day, since they are pretty much the only devices (next to Raspberry Pi), who offer the possibility of hardware acceleration, analog tv out (composite) and HDMI (for the future). Used High Quality CRTs are so cheap nowadays, and I neither want to nor can spend the money for a goof flatscreen.

[gimli]

J1nx, not it's not sold yet, but I really can't see any a10 other than the pivios getting hardware acceleration any time soon. Whilst it's good news in some sense, I think it's bad news in others. I know gimli has put in a lot of hard work, but xbmc devs working for a sole manufacturer just feels like a bit of a conflict of interest and goes against the ethos of xbmc bing open source, as I would imagine that they have agreed with pivios not to work on other competitor platforms like mele so that the pivios can remain exclusive and sell lots of units.

Just feels like they have sold out to the highest bidder as it were, and have left the rest Of us a10 owners in the dark, which doesn't feel right especially when they have had other boxes like the mele etc donated, but have deliberately not developed for them and strung people along whilst all the time in the background secretly working on the pivios.

No doubt I'll probably get flamed and kicked from the forum for the comments, or the post will be deleted and that's fair enough As I had to express my view.

As a message to gimli & xbmc team, I mean no disrespect and I know you guys work hard and I do appreciate your hard work as I use xbmc on my pc, so please don't take my comments as a personal attack as they aren't meant to be, I am just expressing my feeling about the hardware acceleration being done for a sole manufacturer which I don't agree with for a open source app.

Reality is, that we only have leaked binaries from allwinner/softwinner for the a10 decoder. The library is crap and needs fixing from allwinner/softwinner. If you think your platform is important, go reverse the decoder library and fix the crap. I will not release anything untill i feel it's ready for public consumption. That is a fact, that doesn't have space in your paranoid brain.

Maybe you didn't get it. My personal work was porting to RaspberryPI and now the A10. You can image that code doesn't pop out of nothing. We are only a few developer on the ARM side with different focuses. The rest of the Team is focused on the PC side. Which means limited resources for ARM. Feel free to contribute patches and support ARM, otherwise don't cross my line, stay silent and let me have my fun. I could do the same like you now, play the little child and just delete what i have done so far for the A10.

Yes i take your message as personal attack. I do the development in my free time for fun. Idiots like you taking the fun out of it. You have no fucking clue whats going on behind the scenes. If we would sold our souls the android port wouldn't be public and we would get rich with it.