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• Decoding VP8 On A Sega Dreamcast

  20 février 2011, par Multimedia Mike — Sega Dreamcast, VP8

  I got Google’s libvpx VP8 codec library to compile and run on the Sega Dreamcast with its Hitachi/Renesas SH-4 200 MHz CPU. So give Google/On2 their due credit for writing portable software. I’m not sure how best to illustrate this so please accept this still photo depicting my testbench Dreamcast console driving video to my monitor :

  
  
  

  Why ? Because I wanted to try my hand at porting some existing software to this console and because I tend to be most comfortable working with assorted multimedia software components. This seemed like it would be a good exercise.

  You may have observed that the video is blue. Shortest, simplest answer : Pure laziness. Short, technical answer : Path of least resistance for getting through this exercise. Longer answer follows.

  Update : I did eventually realize that the Dreamcast can work with YUV textures. Read more in my followup post.

  Process and Pitfalls
  libvpx comes with a number of little utilities including decode_to_md5.c. The first order of business was porting over enough source files to make the VP8 decoder compile along with the MD5 testbench utility.

  Again, I used the KallistiOS (KOS) console RTOS (aside : I’m still working to get modern Linux kernels compiled for the Dreamcast). I started by configuring and compiling libvpx on a regular desktop Linux system. From there, I was able to modify a number of configuration options to make the build more amenable to the embedded RTOS.
  
  I had to create a few shim header files that mapped various functions related to threading and synchronization to their KOS equivalents. For example, KOS has a threading library cleverly named kthreads which is mostly compatible with the more common pthread library functions. KOS apparently also predates stdint.h, so I had to contrive a file with those basic types.

  So I got everything compiled and then uploaded the binary along with a small VP8 IVF test vector. Imagine my surprise when an MD5 sum came out of the serial console. Further, visualize my utter speechlessness when I noticed that the MD5 sum matched what my desktop platform produced. It worked !

  Almost. When I tried to decode all frames in a test vector, the program would invariably crash. The problem was that the file that manages motion compensation (reconinter.c) needs to define MUST_BE_ALIGNED which compiles byte-wise block copy functions. This is necessary for CPUs like the SH-4 which can’t load unaligned data. Apparently, even ARM CPUs these days can handle unaligned memory accesses which is why this isn’t a configure-time option.

  Showing The Work
  I completed the first testbench application which ran the MD5 test on all 17 official IVF test vectors. The SH-4/Dreamcast version aces the whole suite.

  However, this is a video game console, so I had better be able to show the decoded video. The Dreamcast is strictly RGB— forget about displaying YUV data directly. I could take the performance hit to convert YUV -> RGB. Or, I could just display the intensity information (Y plane) rendered on a random color scale (I chose blue) on an RGB565 texture (the DC’s graphics hardware can also do paletted textures but those need to be rearranged/twiddled/swizzled).

  Results
  So, can the Dreamcast decode VP8 video in realtime ? Sure ! Well, I really need to qualify. In the test depicted in the picture, it seems to be realtime (though I wasn’t enforcing proper frame timings, just decoding and displaying as quickly as possible). Obviously, I wasn’t bothering to properly convert YUV -> RGB. Plus, that Big Buck Bunny test vector clip is only 176x144. Obviously, no audio decoding either.

  So, realtime playback, with a little fine print.

  On the plus side, it’s trivial to get the Dreamcast video hardware to upscale that little blue image to fullscreen.

  I was able to tally the total milliseconds’ worth of wall clock time required to decode the 17 VP8 test vectors. As you can probably work out from this list, when I try to play a 320x240 video, things start to break down.

  1. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 987 milliseconds.
  2. Processed 49 176x144 frames in 1809 milliseconds.
  3. Processed 49 176x144 frames in 704 milliseconds.
  4. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 255 milliseconds.
  5. Processed 49 176x144 frames in 339 milliseconds.
  6. Processed 48 175x143 frames in 2446 milliseconds.
  7. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 432 milliseconds.
  8. Processed 2 1432x888 frames in 2060 milliseconds.
  9. Processed 49 176x144 frames in 1884 milliseconds.
  10. Processed 57 320x240 frames in 5792 milliseconds.
  11. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 989 milliseconds.
  12. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 740 milliseconds.
  13. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 839 milliseconds.
  14. Processed 49 175x143 frames in 2849 milliseconds.
  15. Processed 260 320x240 frames in 29719 milliseconds.
  16. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 962 milliseconds.
  17. Processed 29 176x144 frames in 933 milliseconds.

• Dreamcast SD Adapter and DreamShell

  31 décembre 2014, par Multimedia Mike — Sega Dreamcast

  Nope ! I’m never going to let go of the Sega Dreamcast hacking. When I was playing around with Dreamcast hacking early last year, I became aware that there is such a thing as an SD card adapter for the DC that plugs into the port normally reserved for the odd DC link cable. Of course I wanted to see what I could do with it.

  The primary software that leverages the DC SD adapter is called DreamShell. Working with this adapter and the software requires some skill and guesswork. Searching for these topics tends to turn up results from various forums where people are trying to cargo-cult their way to solutions. I have a strange feeling that this post might become the unofficial English-language documentation on the matter.

  Use Cases
  What can you do with this thing ? Undoubtedly, the primary use is for backing up (ripping) the contents of GD-ROMs (the custom optical format used for the DC) and playing those backed up (ripped) copies. Presumably, users of this device leverage the latter use case more than the former, i.e., download ripped games, load them on the SD card, and launch them using DreamShell.

  However, there are other uses such as multimedia playback, system exploration, BIOS reprogramming, high-level programming, and probably a few other things I haven’t figured out yet.

  Delivery
  I put in an order via the dc-sd.com website and in about 2 short months, the item arrived from China. This marked my third lifetime delivery from China and curiously, all 3 of the shipments have pertained to the Sega Dreamcast.

  
  

  

  Click for larger image

  
  

  I thought it was very interesting that this adapter came in such complete packaging. The text is all in Chinese, though the back states “Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP, Mac OS 9.1, LINUX2.4”. That’s what tipped me off that they must have just cannibalized some old USB SD card readers and packaging in order to create these. Closer inspection of the internals through the translucent pink case confirms this.

  Usage
  According to its change log, DreamShell has been around for a long time with version 1.0.0 released in February of 2004. The current version is 4.0.0 RC3. There are several downloads available :

  1. DreamShell 4.0 RC 3 CDI Image
  2. DreamShell 4.0 RC 3 + Boot Loader
  3. DreamShell 4.0 RC 3 + Core CDI image

  Option #2 worked for me. It contains a CDI disc image and the DreamShell files in a directory named DS/.

  Burn the CDI to a CD-R in the normal way you would burn a bootable Dreamcast disc from a CDI image. This is open-ended and left as an exercise to the reader, since there are many procedures depending on platform. On Linux, I used a small script I found once called burncdi-dc.sh.

  Then, copy the contents of the DS/ folder to an SD card. As for filesystem, FAT16 and FAT32 are both known to work. The files in DS/ should land in the root of the SD card ; the folder DS/ should not be in the root.

  Plug the SD card into the DC SD adapter and plug the adapter in the link cable port on the back of the Dreamcast. Then, boot the disc. If it works, you will see this minor corruption of the usual Sega licensing screen :

  
  
  

  Then, there will be a brief white-on-black text screen that explains the booting process :
  

  
  
  

  Then, there will be the main DreamShell logo :

  
  
  

  Finally, you will land on the DreamShell main desktop :

  
  
  

  Skepticism
  At first, I was supremely skeptical of the idea that this SD adapter could perform speedily enough to play games reasonably. This was predicated on the observation that my DC coder’s cable that I used to use for homebrew development could not transfer faster than 115200 bits/second, amounting to about 11 kbytes/sec. I assumed that this was a fundamental limitation of the link port.

  In fact, I ripped a few of my Dreamcast discs over a decade ago and still have those rips lying around. So I copied the ISO image of Resident Evil : Code Veronica — the game I personally played most on the DC — to the SD card (anywhere works) and used the “ISO loader” icon seen on the desktop above to launch the game.

  It works :

  
  
  

  The opening FMV plays at full speed. Everything loads as fast as I remember. I was quite surprised.

  Digression : My assumptions about serial speeds have often been mistaken. 10 years ago, I heard stories about how we would soon be able to watch streaming video on our cell phones. I scoffed because I thought the 56K limitation of dialup modems was some sort of fundamental speed-of-light type of limitation for telephony bandwidth, wired or wireless.

  The desktop menu also includes a ‘speedtest’ tool that profiles the write and read performance of your preferred storage medium. For my fastest SD card (a PNY 2 GB card) :

  
  
  

  This is probably more representative of the true adapter bandwidth as reading and writing is a good deal faster through more modern interfaces on PC and Mac with this same card.

  Look at the other options on the speedtest console. Hard drive ? Apparently, it’s possible, but it requires a good deal more hardware hacking than just purchasing this SD adapter.

  Ripping
  As you can see from the Resident Evil screenshot, playing games works quite nicely. How about ripping ? I’m pleased to say that DreamShell has a beautiful ripping interface :

  
  
  

  Enter a name for the disc (or read the disc label), select the storage medium, and let it, well, rip. It indicates which track it’s working on and the Sega logo acts as a progress bar, shading blue as the track rip progresses.

  I’m finally, efficiently, archiving that collection of Sega Dreamcast demo discs ; I’m hoping they’ll eventually find a home at the Internet Archive. How is overall ripping performance ? Usually about 38-40 minutes to rip a full 900-1000 MB. That certainly beats the 27-28 hours that were required when I performed the ripping at 11 kbytes/sec via the DC coders cable.

  All is well until I get a sector reading error :

  
  
  

  That’s when it can come in handy to have 3 DC consoles (see ?! not crazy !).

  Other Uses
  There’s a file explorer. You can browse the filesystem of the SD card, visual memory unit, or the CD portion of the GD-ROM (would be more useful if it accessed the GD area). There are FFmpeg files included. So I threw a random Cinepak file and random MPEG-1 file at it to see what happens. MPEG-1 didn’t do anything, but this Cinepak file from some Sierra game played handily :

  
  
  

  If you must enter strings, it helps to have a Dreamcast keyboard (which I do). Failing that, here’s a glimpse of the onscreen keyboard that DreamShell equips :

  
  
  

  Learning to use it is a game in itself.

  There is an option of installing DreamShell in the BIOS. I did not attempt this. I don’t know if it’s possible (not like there’s a lot of documentation)– perhaps a custom BIOS modchip is needed. But here’s what the screen looks like :

  
  
  

  There is also a plain console to interact with (better have a physical keyboard). There are numerous file manipulation commands and custom system interaction commands. I see one interesting command called ‘addr’ that looks useful for dumping memory regions to a file.

  A Lua language interpreter is also built in. I would love to play with this if I could ascertain whether DreamShell provided Dreamcast-specific APIs.

  Tips And Troubleshooting
  I have 3 Dreamcast consoles, affectionately named Terran, Protoss, and Zerg after the StarCraft II stickers with which they are adorned. Some seem to work better than others. Protoss seemed to be able to boot the DreamShell disc more reliably than the others. However, I was alarmed when it couldn’t boot one morning when it was churning the previous day.

  I think the problem is that it was just cold. That seemed to be the issue. I put in a normal GD-ROM and let it warm up on that disc for awhile and then DreamShell booted fine. So that’s my piece of cargo-culting troubleshooting advice.

• PHP and FFMPEG Remove Code in Video [on hold]

  6 janvier 2015, par user580950

  I have set of videos where i need to remove the code ( check below screen grab as an example ), you can see the code in RED .NOt sure if its possible to do it using PHP & ffmpeg or similar to detect a black box or hash key or serial no and blur out.

  It must be able to use mpeg-ts file input and output with mpeg-ts.

  Detection must be done and blurring must start 5 (configurable) seconds before the black box appears, this means we have to buffer the video and blur out the position where it will appear before it does.