FW: [beagleboard] Re: DVI-D to LCD panel conversion

[Edward Robbins]

Would the $25 provide LVDS as you describe, or direct access to the LCD signals? Personally, I would be paying $175 right now to buy one if I could get to the direct access to the LCD signals, even if I needed to add my own buffers, and even if the board size increased slightly. As it is I am still sans-beagle. I think many of the hobbyists in the community would appreciate this too, as it really opens the doors to a huge range of embedded possibilities aside from a desktop/development system.

 

If you’re worried about losing users who are not interested in the feature, how about another version of the board? If you could put all the connectors onto pin headers in that version – even better, and that might help reduce the cost compared to all the standard connectors.

 

I know the beagle board isn’t intended as an OMAP development system, and hence it is missing some features of the OMAP, but any other kind of peripheral can be sensibly added using SPI or some other serial bus – e.g. keyboard matrix decoders, digitizer interfaces, cameras etc, while it seems silly and counter productive to go from raw digital LCD signals to DVI-D back to LCD signals again.

 

Otherwise I’ll probably be waiting for cogent/gumstix to produce their OMAP products L

 

Ed.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: beagl...@googlegroups.com [mailto:beagl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Gerald Coley
Sent: 12 August 2008 13:16
To: beagl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [beagleboard] Re: DVI-D to LCD panel conversion

 

I understand. There is a way to purchase a DVI-D to LVDS board for $40. But it limits you to a LVDS panels. As the output is 1.8V on the OMAP3, buffers need to be added to convert it to a higher voltage to support a typical LCD panel.

 

If we added $25 in cost to the board to support this feature, is it worth it? Would the community pay $175?

 

Gerald

 

On 8/12/08, Edward Robbins <edward....@oxfordtechnologies.co.uk> wrote:

FYI, I would also be very interested in this feature and think there are
many others who would too - it is the one missing feature that I could
really use.

Ed.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: beagl...@googlegroups.com [mailto:beagl...@googlegroups.com]
> On Behalf Of Bill Gatliff
> Sent: 12 August 2008 11:31
> To: beagl...@googlegroups.com
> Cc: dis...@beagleboard.org
> Subject: [beagleboard] Re: DVI-D to LCD panel conversion
>
>
> Jason Kridner wrote:
> > It has been a frequently asked question regarding how to interface to an
> > embedded LCD panel using the Beagle Board, given that the OMAP3 LCD
> interface
> > pins are not brought to the header.
>
> You'll be fixing that with the 'C' revisions, right?
>
>
> b.g.
> --
> Bill Gatliff
> bg...@billgatliff.com
>
>
>

<br

[Gerald Coley]

Another version of the board has been talked about, but it is not currently a focus for us. It will be sometime next year before such a board was done, if it were even done.

 

I have done over 20 OMAP based EVMs and if we make everyone happy, it won't be $175 it would be closer to $1000. The issue is finding the exact 1 or 2 additional features that make as many folks as possible happy. I agree that the LCD interface would be nice to have, we just need to figure out how to get it done. As you have said, this is not an EVM so the question must be asked is "Where do we stop?" It is not like there isn't already solutions out there that provide all of these features today. We are also very aware of the fact that we do not want to encroach on the Cogents and Gumsticks of the world. So, please fell free to contact them.

 

Our focus is really on making what is inside the OMAP3 accessible and usable. The feature set chosen was based on the minimum set needed to access the internals of the OMAP3 device with the goal of keeping the cost down.

 

I will most definitely take your input and add it to the list!

 

Thanks!

[Edward Robbins]

You are right of course. Tbh, the beagleboard is a really nice system as it is, and it makes a fantastic system for developing code on (better than an EVM IMHO), and the cost is amazingly low. Sorry to reiterate myself, but with an LCD interface it would be very straightforward to use in home-grown embedded systems without any other modifications, and, I believe, would encourage a new level of innovation in the community.

Cheers,

Ed

 

<br

[Ulf Söderberg]

Why not use a USB-To-VGA adapter, or one of those USB-connected displays with the graphics controller built-in?

 

/Ulf

[Koen Kooi]

On 13 aug, 11:44, Ulf Söderberg <ulf.soderb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why not use a USB-To-VGA adapter, or one of those USB-connected displays
> with the graphics controller built-in?

The usb2vga adaptor I have will give you a fast slideshow :(

regards,

Koen

[Bill Gatliff]

Gerald Coley wrote:

>
> Our focus is really on making what is inside the OMAP3 accessible and
> usable. The feature set chosen was based on the minimum set needed to access
> the internals of the OMAP3 device with the goal of keeping the cost down.

The price points of the Cogent and Gumstix products still make them
attractive to experimenters and one-off project developers. So maybe it
does make sense to leave a hardware-intensive feature like direct-to-LCD
to those platforms. I've also noticed that anything involving an LCD
becomes a support issue for someone, since the hardware is a little more
complicated to connect to, configure and use.

Given that, it probably makes sense to leave this feature OFF of the
beagleboard.

That doesn't mean that you can't do video output with the beagleboard,
it only means that you have to go at it a different way. If you want
more control over the LCD interface, you'll have to step up to a board
that's designed for that purpose, i.e. Cogent or Gumstix.

I'm ok with that, even though it means retracting a request for a nice
feature. :)