Any way to get ~24 fps video playback on the Ipod Video 5.5 gen?

[turantelle]

So, I currently get about 15-19 fps with my 80GB 5.5 gen Ipod Video, using the FF encoded material with rockboxed ipod specific settings (128 kbps audio, ~800kbps video).

Any tricks to get a smooth(er) framerate, preferably without turning down the video dimension or bitrate? Overclocking the cpu in the debug menu might help a bit, but causes the CPU to max out all the time, right? And if, how is the battery drain doing so?

Or is my only current alternative to boot into the original Ipod firmware?

Cheers.

[Llorean]

There is no option to "overclock" the processor in the menus. Even the option in the debug menu doesn't overclock it, it just permanently sets it at the top speed Rockbox uses it at which mpegplayer does anyway, so it's pointless.

Your only alternative is to boot the original iPod firmware.

[turantelle]

Thanks for clearing that up, but what about lowering audio/video bitrate and/or dimensions?

[Llorean]

Both of those will improve performance (dimensions much moreso than bitrate, though your bitrate is  a bit high). I mentioned neither because you said you preferred not to do either of those.

[turantelle]

Ok, I will experiment and post back my results here.

And I did say preferably, implying that bitrate dimension changes are OK if there are no other options

[robin0800]

We don't use the video chip yet in rockbox (no info available) so video in the OF, will at present, always be faster.

[Army]

Is there any work done into this direction? I don't really know, how difficult it might be to support this chip, but will it ever be supported? (I don't really need it, but would be a nice-to-have )

[LambdaCalculus]

No work has been done, as the video accelerator chip in the iPod video is an undocumented Broadcom chip (undocumented in the sense that there are no public datasheets at all).

With that said, we don't know when or if the chip will ever be supported, besides the fact that the little bit of investigation done on it reveals it to be a totally different platform architecture from the PortalPlayer chip used as the main CPU in the video IIRC.

[Army]

Alright, thanks for the answer! Thinking about it a little, I came to the opinion, that it makes more sense to optimize the things already supported, for example increase battery life etc.