[Openchrome-users] A bounty for XVMC on the CX700?

[Xavier Bachelot]

Coleman Kane wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-09-03 at 20:19 -0500, Chris Larkee wrote:
>> Hello.
>> 
>> I've been monitoring this mailing for quite some time, because have
>>  been eagerly waiting for xvmc support on the CX700.
>> 
>> I saw a while back that it seemed like it was very close to being 
>> uploaded, but I haven't seen any mention of it lately: 
>> http://wiki.openchrome.org/pipermail/openchrome-users/2008-March/004391.html
>> 
>> 
>> XVMC is very significant to a large upcoming project of mine, so at
>>  this point I am willing to make a donation to the openchrome team
>> if someone can get this working. I can't give an exact promise
>> right now, but it would be about $300. Maybe more, once some of the
>> money from the project comes in.
>> 
>> Is anyone interested?
>> 
>> -Chris Larkee
> 
> Yeah, I am still patiently awaiting this. Discussions w/ VIA have
> gotten me nowhere, as VIA's employees want me to acquire an MPEG LLA
> license *before* I can get the code from them, at least last time
> that I tried.
> 
> Perhaps we'll see a shift away from this policy (a la Intel) with the
>  new open-source releasing that is happening now.
> 
I would not expect the new VIA driver to get any mpeg acceleration
capacities in the near future. And they will probably not release any
documentation on the Unichrome Pro II mpeg engine anytime soon, both
because of the MPEG LA license. It is still unclear to me (and VIA) who
should be paying this license fee. I do believe the silicon maker should
pay, but VIA rather want to have the driver provider pay as it "enables"
the feature. At any rate, I don't think releasing the hardware
documentation would infringe any license/patent, but VIA wants to stay
on the safest possible side.

> If I could get some of the current starter work, I might actually be 
> able to help pick up the ball myself.
> 
There is already an XvMC implementation for the Unichrome and Unichrome
Pro mpeg engine. The Unichrome Pro II should not be really different and
 you can probably build upon the current code (once you've discovered by
one way or another what has been modifieded/added/improved in the silicon).

Regards,
Xavier