Media Streamer Platforms Roundup

No discussion on the subject of media streamers will be complete without mentioning the two game consoles, XBox and PS3. The XBox core hardware (with respect to media playing capabilities) hasn't changed much over the years. Firmware updates now enable it to play H264 files with a maximum bitrate of 10 Mbps, which is really not sufficient for most 1080p HD media out there. The PS3 is a little bit better (with a Blu Ray drive built in), but start throwing in some MKVs, and you realize that the firmware is wofeully inadequate for anything other than actual Blu Ray stuff. In any case, the Xbox 360 consumes around 140W while playing HD videos, while PS3 Slim uses around 80W (The original PS3 used around 170W for the same!). The usage of the Xbox and the PS3 models as media streamers (and the underlying hardware which enable them to be used in such a scenario) deserves a detailed article by itself. However, such power consumption numbers put these devices beyond my criteria for a media streamer (their original intent was to act as a game console after all), and I will not discuss them any further in this article.

On the other end of the power spectrum lie the portable media players (PMPs) and smartphone application processors. Advances in chip design have enabled even dimunitive devices to play HD video. Though the latest version of the most popular PMP (iPod Touch 32GB) is unable to play HD content, its competitor (ZuneHD) supports upto 720p video playback. Coupled with a dock near the television, the ZuneHD can potentially replace many a media streamer in the market right now. Agreed, the software ecosystem for these PMPs need to improve to match the offerings using the Realtek and Sigma SOCs, but it is still worth looking in detail into the SOC platforms that these are built on. After all, these are the platforms which will probably take over all the other platforms a couple of years down the line by delivering the same capabilities in a much smaller form factor and power envelop. I will not discuss the iPod Touch since it doesn't do HD playback, but will solely concentrate on the ZuneHD.
 

Nvidia Tegra inside the ZuneHD
A Sign of Things to Come (Convergence of the PMP / App Processor & Media Streamer Markets)
[ Picture Courtesy : iFixit ]

The ZuneHD utilizes the NVidia Tegra platform. The good news is that the second generation of the Tegra platform is already in the hands of the manufacturers and I have covered it in the previous section. It is only fair to expect the next generation PMPs to use this platform. In the PMP space, Nvidia will have to look into is power consumption as they move forward. Nvidia GPU cores do not use the Tile Based Rendering approach used by the SGX cores from Imagination Technologies. Tile based rending reduces power consumption which is of paramount importance in portable devices. Whether Nvidia decides to tweak the ULP GeForce core for use in the Tegra platform remains to be seen. Power consumption numbers for the Tegra SOC are low compared to the other offerings in the media streamer market, but that is a given considering the number of features that are skimped on and the fact that it is meant to be running on batteries! All in all, this platform loks like a promising start for PMPs to move towards the media streamer market as proved by the Boxee Box which uses the Tegra 2.

Many PMPs in the Chinese market have also started to boast 1080p playback over HDMI from handheld devices. An example is the Chuwi P7, which utilizes the TCC8901, an offering from Telechips, a South Korean multimedia chipset company. The TCC8901 uses a ARM11 host processor with a 3D core from ARM (the Mali 400) for the aesthetic GUI. However, the core IP for decoding video has been licensed from another South Korean company, Chips&Media. This company provides the ubiquitous Boda / Coda series of video IP which is present in almost all low cost, low power HD codec solutions in the Chinese market (as well as some application processor platforms in the US). In addition to the usual H264 and VC-1 decoding, this IP also has the ability to process HD RMVB content. Telechips TCC8900 (probably a minor variant of the TCC8901) is used in the HDX Bone, which claims to be the first media streamer product capable of dual booting into Android, as well as the primary media browsing OS. Industry insiders believe that a leading media streamer chipset company has also shifted to using Chips&Media IP for their future generation products.

Chips&Media is not the only player in town supplying IP for HD decoding. Companies such as SiliconImage (the HDMI pioneer) and Imagination Tech (of the PowerVR SGX series 3D GPU fame) are also quite active in this space. ImgTech has been claiming HD decode for many years now with the PowerVR VXD line, while SiliconImage claims the ability to decode even UltraHD streams. However, we are currently not aware of any product in the media streamer space shipping with either IP in silicon. The Apple A4 uses the PowerVR VXD for HD encode / decode, but it doesn't find itself in a media streamer yet. Both the iPad and the recently released iPhone place too many restrictions on files which can be played back, compared to other products in the media streamer space.

Tegra 2 may also be classified as a smartphone application processor (if the term may be stretched) based on the number of tablet designs which utilize this platform. Many of the application processors introduced at the 2010 Mobile World Congress also claim to support HD decode (We will cover the app processors which deserve to be watched in a separate article). Towards the end of last year, Samsung quietly slipped in a smartphone app processor similar to the Apple A4 (Cortex-A8 with a PowerVR 3D engine), only with better HD capabilities. At CeBit 2010, Asus introduced the first product based on the Samsung S5PV210, the EeeMedia EM0501. The surprising feature of this product is the support for high definition RMVB playback, with the other features similar to that of the Boxee Box. The exact capabilities of this product will only be known when it lands in the hands of the reviewers.

EeeMedia EM0501 at CeBit 2010
Samsung's S5PV210 Application Processor in a Standalone Media Streamer
[ Picture Courtesy : Slashgear ]