FOSDEM Video hardware
The FOSDEM video hardware project is about developing a 100% FOSS & open hardware video streaming platform.
It is meant as a successor to the existing FOSDEM video boxes. These are relatively bulky and expensive. We're aiming to build a cheap, compact and lightweight device.
We hope to enable a shared platform with other conferences and projects.
Status
We have confirmed the viability of the concept, and have produced a handful of prototype boards. These boards enable us to work on the software stack first. Once the software is in good shape, we will go back to the hardware drawing board for the next version of the prototype. This next version will be built using all the hardware components we are intending to use.
Hardware
Mainboard
We're evaluating the Olimex A20-Olinuxino-Lime2 as the main board. It's well supported by the mainline linux kernel, thanks to the efforts of the linux-sunxi community.
HDMI input
The A20 does not have HDMI input. We're looking into building a custom HDMI input board based upon the ADV7611. We push the hdmi to the A20 over csi.
Software
We plan to take in 720p60 hdmi audio & video. That is the most widely supported resolution/refresh rate combination. It also hits a sweet spot between video quality and complexity.
The hdmi input gets three destinations:
- to the projector (with minimal delay!)
- to the h264 encoder
- to the lcd for live playback
The video encoding should be possible using the embedded cedrus vpu. The aac audio encoding will have to be cpu based.
Code
The current code can be found in the repositories below:
- https://github.com/libv/fosdem-video-juggler
- https://github.com/libv/sun4i-demp
- https://github.com/libv/sun4i-csi1
- https://github.com/libv/cedarx_h264_encoder
- https://github.com/libv/fosdem-video-u-boot
- https://github.com/libv/fosdem-video-linux
Thanks
We would like to thank the videobrick project for their inspiration.
A large part of this project is funded through the NGI0 PET Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 825310.