Pico Projector with Beagle Bone Black

[Aravind Muthusamy]

Waiting to know if BBB supports pico projectors over its HDMI port.

I'm curious and eager, since angstrom distributions for Beagle Bone did not support Picos ( I had a sleeve for Beagle Bone that had a HDMI port ).

Please let me know ASAP since I'm planning to order one.

Thanks.

Aravind.M

[Gerald Coley]

What is the resolution of the Pico projector you have in mind? Typically the resolution is pretty poor. You can look at the resolutions supported as listed in the manual. I don't recall if the Pico supports EDID. If it does it should work OK. Otherwise you may have to manually change the boot parameters to go to the desired resolution.

Gerald

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[Aravind Muthusamy]

Gerald,

Here are the details of the pico I have :

Technical Specifications

• DLP1700 Resolution: HVGA [480 x 320]
• Brightness: 7 lumens
• Contrast ratio: 1000:1
• Light source: Solid-state 3 LED
• Video input: DVI-D RGB888, VGA 50Hz or 60Hz

Further details :

http://www.ti.com/tool/dlp1picokit

Actually this did not work with BEaglebone with HDMI cape ( since the supporting code was not there in the angstrom distribution ).

Please let me know if changing the display parameters in the env file would suffice to make it work as far as BBB is concerned .

Regards,

aravind.

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[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 9 May 2013, Aravind Muthusamy wrote:

> Gerald,
> Here are the details of the pico I have :
>
> Technical Specifications
>

> * DLP1700 Resolution: HVGA [480 x 320]
> * Brightness: 7 lumens
> * Contrast ratio: 1000:1
> * Light source: Solid-state 3 LED
> * Video input: DVI-D RGB888, VGA 50Hz or 60Hz
> Further details :
> http://www.ti.com/tool/dlp1picokit

if this is the projector you're talking about:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/2510094-0001/296-23836-ND/1960741

i have one around here somewhere and can test this as soon as i find
it. if memory serves, the projector itself has a *mini* HDMI interface
so i'd have to go out and get a mini-micro HDMI cable.

that unit is discontinued, you noticed that, right?

rday

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[Aravind Muthusamy]

Yes, it is the same thing and it is discontinued. 

But mine is live as yet and would want to use it atleast with the BBB. Beagle bone did not work with it.

So would like to atleast put to use it now.

Please let me know once you test it. Then I will go ahead and order a BBB.

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 9 May 2013, Aravind Muthusamy wrote:

> Yes, it is the same thing and it is discontinued.� But mine is live
> as yet and would want to use it atleast with the BBB. Beagle bone
> did not work with it. So would like to atleast put to use it now.
>
> Please let me know once you test it. Then I will go ahead and order
> a BBB.
>
>
> On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 2:48 PM, Robert P. J. Day
> <rpj...@crashcourse.ca> wrote:
> On Thu, 9 May 2013, Aravind Muthusamy wrote:
>
> > Gerald,
> > Here are the details of the pico I have :
> >
> > Technical Specifications
> >
> > �* �DLP1700 Resolution: HVGA [480 x 320]
> > �* �Brightness: 7 lumens
> > �* �Contrast ratio: 1000:1
> > �* �Light source: Solid-state 3 LED
> > �* �Video input: DVI-D RGB888, VGA 50Hz or 60Hz
> > Further details :
> > http://www.ti.com/tool/dlp1picokit

ok, i found it at the back of a drawer, it's that same model, and
yes it has a mini-HDMI input so i'll need to pop by the computer store
later today to pick up a cable or adapter. in the meantime, feel free
to tell me *exactly* the set of steps to properly test this. i've got
one BBB running the original build, and the other the latest
BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.05.08.

[Aravind Muthusamy]

Thank you.

This should help you http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/dlpu003a/dlpu003a.pdf

And ideally if connected , you should be able to see the bootup screen and the terminal being projected

-Aravind

[Gerald Coley]

You cannot change the display parameters in the uENV.txt file. It will not work. You have to cange it in th eboot parameter file.

480x320 is really low. I don;t know that the HDMI chip we use can get that low. What we had before was a DVI-D chip.

Gerald

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 9 May 2013, Gerald Coley wrote:

> You cannot change the display parameters in the uENV.txt file. It
> will not work. You have to cange it in th eboot parameter file.
> 480x320 is really low. I don;t know that the HDMI chip we use can
> get that low. What we had before was a DVI-D chip.
>
> Gerald

this page:

http://hipstercircuits.com/my-kingdom-for-a-4-3-hdmi-compatible-lcd/

suggests that 480x320 isn't going to work:

"But even if the DVI receiver chip was able to receive at a low
resolution, the TDA19988 chip that converts the signal from 16 bit
parallel RGB to Transition-Minimized Differential Signalling  (TMDS)
on the BBB is unable to send at low resolutions. The lowest resolution
it can send is VGA (640×480) according to it’s datasheet, ..."

[Gerald Coley]

Just for the record. The HDMI Cape uses the same chip as the BeagleBone Black.

Gerald

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[Aravind Muthusamy]

So, is the verdict going to be, pico projectors with 480x320 resolution is not going to work on BBB (with or without cape )?.

-Aravind

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[Gerald Coley]

It will NOT work

Gerald

[Vladimir Pantelic]

yes, the pico accepts 640x480 which is the lowest and mandatory HDMI mode

On May 9, 2013 5:34 PM, <darren.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

The link posted above (http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/dlpu003a/dlpu003a.pdf) says that the hdmi input to the pico is 640x480 and it gets scaled down internally to the DMD 480x320 resolution.  I just tested 640x480@60 on the BBB and this mode is output matching the spec nicely. So in theory it at least has a chance of working, but the only way to find out for sure is to try.   However as stated above an output from the HDMI of 480x320 will *not* work.

Darren

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 9 May 2013, darren.e...@gmail.com wrote:

> The link posted above
> (http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/dlpu003a/dlpu003a.pdf) says that the hdmi
> input to the pico is 640x480 and it gets scaled down internally to

> the DMD 480x320 resolution. �I just tested 640x480@60 on the BBB and

> this mode is output matching the spec nicely. So in theory it at
> least has a chance of working, but the only way to find out for sure

> is to try. � However as stated above an output from the HDMI of
> 480x320 will *not* work.

you're right, i should have remembered that. so if i can just lay
hands on a micro <-> mini HDMI cable, will the current image
auto-detect via EDID the correct res and simply work? still can't test
it as i've yet to pick up the cable.

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 9 May 2013, darren.e...@gmail.com wrote:

> it should... �but if it doesn't I can walk you through collecting
> some debug logs so we can figure out what is wrong.
>
> if for some reason is doesn't auto select 640x480 then add:
>
> video=HDMI-A-1=640x480@60�
>
> onto your kernel parameters.

got the cable, plugged BBB into pico projector ... nothing. pico is
still displaying the splash "TI DLP" screen. is there a timing/order
issue? should i plug in the pico before or after boot?

i'm ssh'ed into the BBB right now, is there an EDID detect utility?
open to suggestions. oh, and i'm running the 2013.05.08 image, is that
even trying to display?

rday

[Gerald Coley]

That image tries to display on most monitors and does indeed succeed.I am looking at one right now. I also just saw several hundred boards in production pass testing as well.

The display needs to be plugged in to read the EDID. Power up the board and connect the projector and then reset the board to make sure the projector is ready to give EDID, assuming it can, and that the board can then read it..

Gerald

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[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 9 May 2013, Gerald Coley wrote:

> That image tries to display on most monitors and does
> indeed�succeed.I am looking at one right now. I also just saw
> several hundred boards in�production�pass testing as well. The
> display needs to be plugged in to read the EDID. Power up the board
> and connect the projector and then reset the board to make sure the
> projector is ready to give EDID, assuming it can, and that the board
> can then read it..

assuming i'm reading you correctly, i:

* powered off BBB
* disconnected HDMI
* powered BBB back on, waited for full boot
* ssh'ed in just to verify proper boot
* connected pico projector
* pressed "reset" button on BBB

no luck -- still standard "TI DLP" splash image.

[Gerald Coley]

Are you sure the projector has EDID? Back in the day when I worked with those guys on that I don't recall that ever being discussed.We did not have EDID support in SW on the -xM.

If nothing is found out on the HDMI by reading HDMI, I think the SW assumes nothing is there. Sounds like we need a way to force the display to turn on. Can you get it working on a regular monitor and then just move the cable to the projector?

Gerald

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[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 9 May 2013, Gerald Coley wrote:

> Are you sure the projector has EDID? Back in the day when I worked
> with those guys on that I don't recall that ever being discussed.We
> did not have EDID support in SW on the -xM.

it's entirely possible there isn't -- i'll check on that later this
evening or tomorrow. ubuntu has a "read-edid" package i've used
before.

[Robert Nelson]

On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 3:18 PM, Gerald Coley <ger...@beagleboard.org> wrote:
> Are you sure the projector has EDID? Back in the day when I worked with
> those guys on that I don't recall that ever being discussed.We did not have
> EDID support in SW on the -xM.
>
> If nothing is found out on the HDMI by reading HDMI, I think the SW assumes
> nothing is there. Sounds like we need a way to force the display to turn on.
> Can you get it working on a regular monitor and then just move the cable to
> the projector?

The original pico projectors lack the edid register bits. After a few
months, all of them still on the shelves had been recalled to be
'reworked' and the edid register bits had been added to them. These
reworked/later units had the big #2 revision sticker on top of side of
the case...

Regards,

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[Robert P. J. Day]

and i believe we have our resolution -- mine has no such sticker.

[Jason Stapels]

I don't have my replacement BBB yet so I can't dig myself out, but, is the BBB setup to do everything through a framebuffer? Or is there an actual X11 driver that loads when you start X? If so, I know I've used device parameters to force a custom EDID with X11 before when using HDMI with an uncompliant-but-actually-compliant television before. I mention it as it might be a possible solution for all these people having EDID display issues.

Alternatively, it might be worth allowing boot params that force a particular video mode (obviously at ones own danger) regardless of the EDID data.

[Aravind Muthusamy]

Has this been tested to see if the pico works with BBB ?.

Please let me know. I'm waiting for the verdict to buy one.

THanks.
Aravind

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Fri, 24 May 2013, Aravind Muthusamy wrote:

> Has this been tested to see if the pico works with BBB ?.
>
> Please let me know. I'm waiting for the verdict to buy one.

we had a discussion on this a while back, during which i mentioned
that my original TI pico projector didn't work, but that's because it
apparently didn't return EDID. version 2 of the TI pico projector
apparently does, but i have no such projector to test this on, so
perhaps someone else can weigh in here.

[Aravind Muthusamy]

Thank you.

Can you suggest a projector that would work with the BBB ( or the specs that I should be looking for, while purchasing one to work with BBB ?. ( other than TI's Pico )

I could even try getting it.

My only constraint is that it should be as compact as Ti's Pico.

Thanks.

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[Aravind Muthusamy]

has anyone been able to test the Ti's Pico on BBB yet ?.

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Aravind

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