Can not play video on Beagleboard

[d2v0]

Hi team,

Today I downloaded and run NthCode Player on my beagleboard. I was
able to play audio and photo album successfully, but when I click on
play, the screen goes blank and returns back to the video menu. The
NthCode Player is also able to search my network devices/pcs and
detect media content on this system but I could not play video using
NthPlayer. Can you please guide what could have went wrong here?

Also, I could not find user/password setting for logging into shell.
Can you please point me to the documentation or provide me shell login
details.

Thanks,
Dhaval

[Peter McDermott]

Hi, Dhaval,

I'm happy to hear you were able to run it. Can you tell me which
version of the BeagleBoard you are running?

Also, if you go into Local Files, Videos, and try to play the
Transylvania video, does it work? If not, can you try again by
powering up the board, going directly to Local Files, Videos, playing
again, and letting us know the result.

If the Transylvania video can work, but your video can not, can you
share some details about your video?

The username should be "root" For the password, just press enter.
Please let us know if it doesn't work.

Thanks,

Peter

[Dhaval Shah]

Hi Peter,

> I'm happy to hear you were able to run it. Can you tell me which version of
> the BeagleBoard you are running?

Thanks for the prompt reply, I am accessing my email out side office
and I don't have exact version of beagle board with me. I will be able
to provide you version details after couple of days.

> If the Transylvania video can work, but your video can not, can you share
> some details about your video?

As I said I am able to play audio and image files but I could not play
any video files including the supplied "Transylvania video". When I
click on play, the screen goes blank and than I think it crashes and
video menu is displayed again.

> The username should be "root" For the password, just press enter. Please
> let us know if it doesn't work.

I will try this command when I get back to work. Can you suggest any
debug commands I can use to debug issue with video play?

Thanks,
Dhaval

On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Peter McDermott <pe...@nthcode.com> wrote:
> Hi, Dhaval,

[Peter McDermott]

Hi, Dhaval,

Have you had the opportunity to try Alpha 4? I wonder if it might fix
your issue.

Regards,

Peter

-----
Peter McDermott, CEO
NthCode
Twitter: NthCode

NthPlayer
Seamlessly connecting consumer electronics to home computers and the
Internet
nthplayer.nthcode.com

[Dhaval Shah]

Hi Peter,

I have not tried Alpha 4, I will give you feedback on that in a week or so.

Thanks & Regards,
Dhaval Shah

[Dhaval Shah]

Hi,

I tried Alpha 4. Yes, now i can play videos, I can also play video
over network. While browsing the menu, 3/5 times beagleboard got
hangup and I have to reset system using reset button.

Does NthCode graphics make use of SGX drivers? Do you provide source
for Nth code player?

Thanks & Regards,
Dhaval

[Peter McDermott]

Hi, Dhaval,

I'm happy to hear that the player is now playing video.

For your video lock-up problem, can you tell us the following:

- Which board and revision are you using?
- How much RAM?
- Is there a way to reproduce the problem 100% every time?
- Any other details that will help us to find the root cause?

We don't currently use SGX, but we plan to use the hardware to
accelerate the UI at a future point. We probably need to get the DSP
decoders working first.

We provide source code for the open-source parts of NthPlayer, such as
the Linux kernel and many of the system libraries. However, we don't
source for our application set.

Thanks for your testing!

Peter

[Dhaval Shah]

Hi Peter,

> - Which board and revision are you using?

Beagleboard rev C
> - How much RAM?
256 MB

> - Is there a way to reproduce the problem 100% every time?

No, but normally it happens when video play is over, and display
returns back to video menu. When this happens Command line reboot also
do not work, system hangs.

> - Any other details that will help us to find the root cause?

The programs running in background may be consuming system resources.
For e.g. while we are browsing video, program keeps scanning shared
dir of computers in a network.

Hope above feedback helps.

Is beagleboard a target platform for NthCodePlayer? Can you share what
performance bottleneck you face with TI OMAP?

Thanks,
Dhaval

[Peter McDermott]

Hi, Dhaval,

We are able to reproduce your issue here on a 256MB Realtime DSP
board. We don't have a clear root cause, but it does, as you have
noticed, seem to be related to the media scanner. In times past, we
have seen that some media files end up eating all the CPU. I thought
we had those issues fixed, though.

Would it be possible for you to ssh into the board from another window
and run top in the background to confirm if nthcatalogerd is eating up
lots of RAM for your specific issue? If it is, and you could take a
look at what the scanner says the file is (should be in the serial
terminal, if it hasn't scrolled off by the time you see the problem),
and can tell us what it is, that would be helpful.

The BeagleBoard is definitely a target platform for NthPlayer. I
think the OMAP3 is terrific embedded CPU. In terms of performance,
our basic strategy is to 1) make it work, 2) make it work well, and
then 3) make it work fast. So we have plenty to do before we are
done. But with feedback from people such as yourself, we will
definitely get there faster.

Thanks!

Peter