Holy cripes, the video project has finally gotten started!

[Llorean]

No, we have some limited code for accessing the second core (which is referred to as the coprocessor or 'cop', the Broadcom chip is nearly always simply referred to as "the Broadcom chip") and there is a possibility that audio decoding will be handled on it. It really depends on whether this makes battery life worse, or can be used to improve it.

As it is, the plan for video is to have the second core on iPods play the audio so that what you're getting as a framerate right now is the *lowest* it should ever be if things work out right.

[linuxstb]

Just to clarify - all iPods (from the first generation up to the fifth) have a PortalPlayer CPU - this consists of two ARM cores, each running at up to about 75MHz - known as the "main cpu" and the "cop".  Work on implementing support for using the COP in Rockbox has just started - we more or less know how to do it, it just hasn't been done yet.

The 5g (Video) also has the Broadcom chip which the Apple firmware uses for video playback.  We have no idea how this works, and Rockbox doesn't make any use of it at all.

[Cho03]

This is damn awesome. I can't wait for the video player to be finished. If theres any way I can help out, just give me a shout. 

EDIT

I just tested the mpeg player out with rocky 1 and this years e3 2006 mgs4 trailer. works a treat.

[linuxstb]

This is damn awesome. I can't wait for the video player to be finished. If theres any way I can help out, just give me a shout. 

EDIT

I just tested the mpeg player out with rocky 1 and this years e3 2006 mgs4 trailer. works a treat.

There are definitely ways to help out.   If you're a programmer, then come along to IRC and chat with the devs - we can point you in the direction of work needing to be done.

But if you're not a programmer, you (or anyone else reading this) could help by testing various different MPEG-1/MPEG-2 encoders and trying to determine the best encoder settings for encoding video for Rockbox - and document your setting on the PluginMpegplayer wiki page:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/PluginMpegplayer

Even better would be if you could find a freely redistributable video and encode it at a similar quality settings for the various different target LCDs.  We could then host the files at http://download.rockbox.org/mpeg/ for use as test files when benchmarking mpegplayer.

[Cho03]

well im not sure i could be a help with the video. maybe i could test out the audio if you guys are working on it. im willing to make my nano a guinea pig.

[momo_101]

same with my ipod photo. I'll do anything you guys want (if it's RockBox related)!