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Standards of a good Digital Signage Player:

1. From Factor - small and compact
2. Power Consumption - low with less cost of electronic bill
3. Cooling - silent
4. Performance - capabiltiy to play HD video
5. Connectivity - wireless, ethernet, usb, internet
6. Content Source - tv, media, picture, camera, dv
7. Security - high
8. Management - remote control and access
9. Function - real-time video mixing
10. Installation - stackage, ragged

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In Christmas Holiday you can buy HP - Pavilion TK-55 Laptop with price USD $549.99. This is a laptop pretty good for Ladybug Mixer V4. Look at its configuration:

• AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 dual-core processor TK-55* with 64-bit platform
• 1GB DDR2 memory better upgrade to 2GB
  
• Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive records up to 8.5GB of data
  
• Simultaneous support for 32-bit and 64-bit computing
• 15.4" WXGA high-definition widescreen display with 1280 x 800 resolution
• 160GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
• NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M (UMA) GPU 287MB graphics memory; S-video TV-out
• QuickPlay touch-sensitive DVD controls; HP mobile remote and ear bud headphones
  
• 5-in-1 reader supports Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and xD-Picture Card
• IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface and 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports
  
• Built-in Wireless LAN (802.11b/g); 10/100Base-T Ethernet
  LAN with RJ-45 connector; 56 Kbps modem; Expansion Port 3 connector
• Weighs 6.1 lbs. and measures 1.7" thin; lithium-ion battery and AC adapter
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition operating system
  preinstalled
  

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• Defragmenting a HDD
  
• Select 7200+ rpm HDD
  
• Format HDD as NTFS
• Apply two or more HDD
• Use RAID enable motherboard
  
• Use WMV9 codec instead of DV
• Turn preview off
• Apply hardware acceleration

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Ladybug Mixer V8 is a realtime multi-channel digital video mixer with programmable effects. Playing vivid videos, showing stunning visual effects and super high resolution pictures, Ladybug Mixer Vn works for video applications as movie post-processing, digital signage, and mobile broadband video. This report is for Neatware’s Ladybug Mixer V8 software version 2.5 beta on AMD Radeon HD 9600PRO.

1. Configuration

The processor is Intel’s 65nm Pentium Dual Core. The Memory is dual-channel DDR2 800MHz. The hard disk is Hitachi 250GB SATA HDD.The operating system is Windows XP Professional SP2.

The Motherboard is Intel’s Q35 series. Q35 chipset also supports 8 SATA, 1 external SATA (for external hard disk), 1 PCI Express x16 and two x1, 1 PCI slot, 12 USB connection, 1 Fireware 1394a port (useful for DV convert), 1 Ethernet 100MB/1000MB port (for fast internet connection). Q35 supports GMA3000 IGP graphics cards with SM3.0 capable as well.

We used Radeon HD2600 PRO 512MB in our tests, which is an great graphics card for media processing. Below is 3DMark06 benchmarks for different modes:

• HD2600XT is 128-bit with GDDR3 256MB Memory, 3DMark06 4803.
  

• HD2600PRO is 128-bit with GDDR2 512MB Memory, 3DMark06 2955.
  

• HD2400PRO is 64-bit with GDDR2 256MB Memory, 3DMark06 1406.
  

There are some reasons for us to select HD2x00 series:

• UVD engine implemented HD hardware decoding for Full-HD 1080p videos. H.264 (MPEG4) and VC-1 (WMV HD) are decorded in hardware which largely reduce the CPU usage and play HD video in smooth.

• UVD also integrated an audio processor for HD audio
  processing. it supports AC3 (5.1) Dolby Digital and DTS coding modes,
  32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz 16-bit audio stream in Windows Vista and XP
  system.
  

• HDMI capability allows graphics card to be connected to
  HDTV large screen directly. The data rate of HDMI supported digital
  video and audio can be upto 3.95Gbps.

• 65nm technology keeps HD2x000 power consumption and noise level at low.

2. Tests

Date: October 21, 2007

2.1 Ladybug Mixer V8 version 2.5

No problem to run LMV8 on Radeon HD 9600.

2.2 MPEG and WMV Videos

MPEG1/2/4 and WMV HD video and JPEG photo worked fine.

2.3 Full HD 1080p Video

LMV8 can run Full HD 1080p video. The CPU usage is 10% to 30%. This is an impressive performance.

2.4 Ultra High-Definition Photo

LMV8 can display 4096x4096 (16MPixel) JEPG UHD photo in stable.

2.4 Frame Per Second (FPS)

The FPS of single video playback is 75 in 1024x768 display! The video quality is good.

2.6 Stability

The driver is stable. We can switch player from window mode to fullscreen mode without any problems.

3. Conclusion

LMV8 work fine on AMD’s Radeon HD9600PRO for Full HD 1080p in fullscreen.

5. Disclaims

No NDA contents are included in this report. The software and hardware used are public available in the market. Neatware is not responsible for any results generated by using the contents of the report.

Copyright © 2007 Neatware. All rights reserved.

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Combining shopping and entertainment experience, providing informative messages and happy procedure that is what NE@TWARE DIGITAL SIGNAGE SOLUTION can help retail stores to do.

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To make NE@TWARE MEDIA STATION satisfy user’s needs, it is interested in knowing how people use PC and HDTV monitor. Here are some use cases, feel free to add your cases.

1. I connect HDTV to PC and watch movies on HDTV not on PC’s monitor.
2. I watch Youtube online videos on PC.
3. I watch movies on my Home Theater.
   
4. I download videos from online and watch them on HDTV.
5. I edit and make a DVD to watch video on HDTV.
6. I use PC with a GPU card along with a XBOX HD DVD drive to watch on HDTV.
7. I use 30" PC monitor to watch videos and record on PC.
8. I use multiple monitors to watch video while playing game
9. I watch movies on my laptop while I am traveling.
10. I use xbox to stream video from a PC server.
11. I connect PC to a projector to watch movie.
12. I use HDTV as my PC monitor.

In summary people like to watch videos on a large screen through a media center PC.
Media Center acts only as a player and organizer. NE@TWARE MEDIA STATION can preview, process, convert, record, and organize digital media.

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A MEDIA STATION may include a media player, a tv tuner, and a render farm. Like a Game PC, a MEDIA STATION requires high-performance and wide bandwidth. To explore the applications of our video processing software such as Ladybug Mixer V8 and other cutting-edge technologies, we start to built NE@TWARE MEDIA STATION platform.

First of all we want to see that LMV8 can play 8-channel HD videos in real-time with effects. Neatware’s Mixer software is our core application for media processing. Video capturer, player, converter, mixer, recorder, and multiple display will be built based on Neatware’s mChannel technology.

A current GPU has been selected as default. It is Radeon HD 2600 XT. This is a GPU good at video processing such as UVD hardware decode for HD 1080p video and HDMI support. And the price is affordable for main stream. It supports DirectX 10 and Crossfire.

Second we are going to test other technologies as Linux, Vista, Virtualization, 64-bits, DX10, AMT, MySQL database on server, Wireless-N connection, .etc. The processor is selected as Intel Core 2 Duo or Quad and the chipset is select as Q35.

Intel’s new Core 2 Duo processors includes 2.33GHz E6550, 2.66GHz E6750, and 3GHz E6850. Their maximum power consumption is 65W, but the idle power consumption is only 8W. Intel’s Q35 Express chipset includes ICH9-DO south bridge and 82566DM Gigabit Ethernet controller. Its maximum and idle power consumption is 13W and 5.5W down from Q965’s 31W and 13W. The total maximum and idle power consumption of Core 2 Duo plus Q35 is 78W and 13.5W vs. Core 2 Duo Old plus Q965’s 96W and 35W. This power saving can reduce hydro bill of 18W.

Finally we need an extensible platform so a game PC case is suitable for both a server and a media processing. The power supply is selected as 600W that is power enough to support SLI. And we can try new cooler to test overclock a processor.

NE@TWARE MEDIA STUDIO is going to provide the best solutions for our customers and provide reference hardware certification for our partners to help them explore various media applications.

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To construct Multiple Monitor Systems with GPUs:

1 PCIe 16x slot for one GPU card with 2 DVI monitor ports;
2 PCIe 16x slot for two GPU card with 4 DVI monitor ports;
2 PCIe 16x slots for two GPU card with 8 DVI monitor ports;
3 PCIe 16x slots for three GPU card with 12 DVI monitor ports;
4 PCIe 16x slots for four GPU card with 16 DVI monitor ports;

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Ladybug Mixer V4 can also be downloaded from CNET’s download.com. Here is the URL.

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The Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) is a small, ultra-mobile devices with full PC capabilities, mobile Internet access, and anytime, anywhere connectivity. The mini requirements of Intel’s UMPC are listed below,

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We just finished to upgrade our development environment to Windows Vista. Some experiences are interests.

Read Only Folder

In Windows XP our development folder is under the Program Files folder. When we copied files to Windows Vista through shared network and rebuilded projects, there was an error to write a file under subfolder. So Windows Explorer was used to remove the read only tags from the files and folders. Unfortunately, the read-only folder can not be changed by Windows Explorer. The article on Microsoft web site said that we need to use attrib -r folder /s in a console. We tried it. But in the command console, it displayed Access Denied! Hit the wall. What’s the solution? We disabled UAC but still did not make sense. A new rule for Windows Vista is:

All user’s programs are going in the User folder and leave Program Files to Vista.

Bingo. We still do not know how to make the programs in the Sample folder of Windows Platform SDK. Help!

Migrate to Visual Studio C++ 2005

After building projects in the User’s folder, we can rebuilt the solution. Added normal include and lib pathes, we need to add the special atl and mfc pathes. There is an no atlthunk.lib error. This article here said how to correct this error. The error of unresolved CBaseRendered can be correct by set wchar_t as a build-in to no in the VS2005.

New HLSL compiler

The old style definition of a variable float2 a : register(r1); now is an error. Simply remove the register can resolve the problem. Another error is float2 a = 0.0; It should be float2 a = float(0.0, 0.0);

Summary

Finally we have migrated development environment to Windows Vista in two days. It was not as easy as what I have expected. There are some "reasonable " hiding rules in Windows Vista that may make confusion.

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The old Ladybug Player XP has been upgraded to work for Windows Vista. Try in the following URL: Ladybug Player

Neatware’s Ladybug software will be reorganized as Ladybug Player and Ladybug Mixer. Ladybug Player is going to be a player for any platforms, any devices, any media. So Ladybug Player is planned to work on mobile phone, PDA, laptop, desktop, server, and so on.

Ladybug Mixer on the other hand requires GPU support in hardware to implement the real-time video composition and effects.

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Texture Address Units and Texture Filtering Units

Radeon X1800 XT 16 ?
Radeon X1900 XTX 16 ?
Radeon X1900 XT 16 ?
Radeon X1950 PRO 16 12
Radeon X1950 XT 16 16
Radeon HD 2400 ? 4
Radeon HD 2600 ? 8
Radeon HD 2900 XT 32 16

Radeon HD 2900 XT has 32 processors to control texture lookups, 80 to fetch texture samples, and 16 to perform floating-point texture filtering.

GeForce 7300 GT ? 8
GeForce 7800 GTX 24 ?
GeForce 8600 GT ? 16
GeForce 7900 GS ? 20
GeForce 8800 GTS ? 54
GeForce 8800 GTX 32 64

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We select GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB Edition as the best video card for Ladybug Player Vista.

The GeForce 8800 GTS is based on Nvidia next-generation DirectX 10 GPU. The 54 texture units are specially good for the multi-channel of Ladybug Player Vista. At $280, this card really brings high ratio of performance and price.

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Via’s new mobile-ITX board is 3 x 1.8 inches that is half the size of Via’s pico-ITX board. It runs Linux or Windows XP Embedded. Mobile-ITX is based on a 1GHz "C7-S" processor and a small CX700 integrated north-/south-bridge chipset. In addition, there is a CDMA baseband processor chip, so it can be a smart phone as well with X86 processor.

Neatware is working to make its video application software working on various mobile devices. more details

Below is the video of a mobile PC based on mobile-itx board.

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How to play HD movies on the PC?

Analog Output

Today you can play a movie at 1080p resolution in an HD DVD or Blu-ray drive using your analog VGA output. "No special HDCP compliant hardware is required!" However there are some limits of analog output

• Analog component video is limited to 1080i (interlaced) resolution.
• Once the Image Constraint Token (ICT) flag is enabled, a 1080p source video will be purposefully degraded in resolution before it outputs to
  your display.
• Once the Digital Only Token (DOT) flag is set on an HD/Blu-ray disk, that disk will not work on an analog output.
  

Digital output is through DVI or HDMI on the PC. Every piece of hardware in the video chain needs to be DRM certified to allow for digital playback of protected HD content.

On the PC, Digital Rights Management (DRM) optical drive has to be AACS enabled, your video card and monitor have to be HDCP enabled.

Hardware Acceleration

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This is a video we shot in a park of Toronto.

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Flower and Vivid Color.

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