Project: Propeller-powered video alarm clock
Andrey Demenev
Posts: 377
Project: Propeller-powered video alarm clock
Just a few words about how the project idea emerged. My son is a big fan of SpongeBob SquarePants series. Few days ago he saw a SpongeBob themed alarm clock in a store. Nothing original, just a usual Chineese electromechanical clock, but he liked it very much. When we returned to the store to buy the clock - it was already sold. We were told that they are not likely would have more of this clock. My son was very upset. Next day, I was tidying my box with electronic stuff, and found a LCD from Siemens mobile phone, and idea arised : what if I make an alarm clock that would not simply play a melody, but play a video? "SpongeBob...SpongeBob? Wake up, boy! You're burning me money!"
The LCD is 132x176, giving a good chance to acieve high enough FPS. Needless to say what processor has been chosen First, I have made some experiments to see how fast I can play video. The LCD can work in 8-bit(2-4-2) or 16-bit (5-6-5) RGB mode. I've tried 8-bit color - the quality was too bad. Next was to try 16-bit color. To keep things simple, I wanted to read entire frame to HUB RAM, and then output it to screen. In 16-bit mode, the full resolution frame would not fit the RAM (132*176*2 = 46464). So, using ffmpeg, I have resized the source video to 88x66, and converted to series of PNG images, one per frame. Then I wrote a program that took these images, converted to 16-bit color, and put them to one big file on SD card. The card was connected to Propeller, and the show has begun Quality of video is not brilliant with such low resolution, but enough to understand what is going on With serial processing (first read entire frame from card, then output to LCD) I have acieved 25 FPS at 96 MHz Propeller clock. If I do reading in parallel with writing to screen, I estimate about 10 FPS at full resolution (176x132). Theoretical limit with 24 MHz SPI clock is 64 FPS (24000000 / 176 / 132 / 16).
Here is a link to video (playing 88x66 16bit, 10 FPS, pixel doubling): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dZjowqu3iA&feature=player_embedded
I'll post updates as the project progresses
Just a few words about how the project idea emerged. My son is a big fan of SpongeBob SquarePants series. Few days ago he saw a SpongeBob themed alarm clock in a store. Nothing original, just a usual Chineese electromechanical clock, but he liked it very much. When we returned to the store to buy the clock - it was already sold. We were told that they are not likely would have more of this clock. My son was very upset. Next day, I was tidying my box with electronic stuff, and found a LCD from Siemens mobile phone, and idea arised : what if I make an alarm clock that would not simply play a melody, but play a video? "SpongeBob...SpongeBob? Wake up, boy! You're burning me money!"
The LCD is 132x176, giving a good chance to acieve high enough FPS. Needless to say what processor has been chosen
First, I have made some experiments to see how fast I can play video. The LCD can work in 8-bit(2-4-2) or 16-bit (5-6-5) RGB mode. I've tried 8-bit color - the quality was too bad. Next was to try 16-bit color. To keep things simple, I wanted to read entire frame to HUB RAM, and then output it to screen. In 16-bit mode, the full resolution frame would not fit the RAM (132*176*2 = 46464). So, using ffmpeg, I have resized the source video to 88x66, and converted to series of PNG images, one per frame. Then I wrote a program that took these images, converted to 16-bit color, and put them to one big file on SD card. The card was connected to Propeller, and the show has begun Quality of video is not brilliant with such low resolution, but enough to understand what is going on With serial processing (first read entire frame from card, then output to LCD) I have acieved 25 FPS at 96 MHz Propeller clock. If I do reading in parallel with writing to screen, I estimate about 10 FPS at full resolution (176x132). Theoretical limit with 24 MHz SPI clock is 64 FPS (24000000 / 176 / 132 / 16).Here is a link to video (playing 88x66 16bit, 10 FPS, pixel doubling): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dZjowqu3iA&feature=player_embedded
I'll post updates as the project progresses
Comments
I think at if You have used Bill Hennings FlexMem that can be populated with 4 SPI Flash IC's that reads Parallel 4 bits at time You can achive speed needed for THAT full size video.
Yes and NO.
On that FlexMem You can have BIG enough Flach IC's to have entire Video in uncompressed form and transfer directly FLACH 2x4 bits to LCD without overhead to HUB ram.
Your son has a great dad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwmBNqdt2Yg