Flash videos

Players, codecs, and video acceleration
Pascalb
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:22 pm

Flash videos

Post by Pascalb »

I guess I'll order a fit-PC2 as soon as it is available. But meanwhile, I'm just wondering about capability of the ubuntu version at displaying Flash videos, like the ones from YouTube for instance. On my current configuration (ubuntu 8.10, VIAC7 + CN700), display of streaming flash videos is very jerky...
Best regards,
P.

irads

Re: Flash videos

Post by irads »

Youtube plays smoothly on fit-PC2 in both Ubuntu 8.04 and Windows XP.

rexrufus
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 6:23 am

Re: Flash videos

Post by rexrufus »

I have a similar concern. My install of Ubuntu 8.10 cannot play multiple audio sources at the same time. If I listen to an mp3, then I have no audio on streaming flash movies at all unless I reboot first (and vice versa). Of course, running both at the same time is impossible.

Different Linux forums suggest dozens of different tweaks (both via the terminal and through the GUI sound controls), but they either do nothing or make the problem worse. The consensus is that Ubuntu 8.x has serious audio issues involving the transition from ALSA to Pulseaudio, but "fixes" seem to be amazingly hardware/platform-dependent.

I refuse to use Vista and want to drop Microsoft altogether, but I've used XP for almost a decade without this frustrating audio nuisance. Reassurance that CompuLab has overcome this issue would all but ensure my purchase of a Linux Fit-PC2. Thank you.

fluffycloud
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:32 pm

Re: Flash videos

Post by fluffycloud »

Why would you expect a hardware vendor to fix an operating system problem? You know XP can handle multiple audio streams, and linux can't, so expect that to happen weather you're using a dell, a hp, or a fit-pc.

You want the problem fixed? go talk to the folks at Ubuntu.

-Fluffy

andybee
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:21 am

Re: Flash videos

Post by andybee »

fluffycloud wrote:Why would you expect a hardware vendor to fix an operating system problem? You know XP can handle multiple audio streams, and linux can't, so expect that to happen weather you're using a dell, a hp, or a fit-pc.

You want the problem fixed? go talk to the folks at Ubuntu.
Linux CAN support multiple audio streams and has for a long time.

The problem that you'll often run into is that some audio hardware can only play one channel at a time. That's why if you're playing music you won't hear the sounds from a game or email program or whatever. This can be worked around by using a software sound mixer such as arts (KDE) or esd (GNOME). This way the sound is already mixed before it reaches the audio hardware and there is no more problem hearing sounds from multiple programs simultaneously.

There are many audio chipsets that are capable of playing multiple sounds simultaneously and are fully supported in Linux. The Creative Sound Blaster Live (emu10k1 chipset) is a good example although it's likely quite out of date now.

I'll quickly say that I don't own a FitPC (yet) and I haven't researched the audio chipset it uses so I can't say what chipsets are used or what their capabilities are. I just wanted to post and say that this absolutely isn't a limitation of the O/S. The only difference is that the Windows sound driver likely does the sound mixing before it hits the card whereas the Linux driver does not.

fluffycloud
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:32 pm

Re: Flash videos

Post by fluffycloud »

Erm, yes, and no. I'll bend and allow as how some audio chips are fundamentally better than others, and only allowing one stream at a time is certainly annoying; but the fact that it can be fixed with esd or arts points to the general problem that these things aren't setup by linux but by what package you happen to be running on top of it.

That aside, I'd love an actual discussion of the audio hardware setup on the fit-pc2. Irads, is there a discrete audio chip in the fit-pc2 or are you just hooking up some pins on the US15W to a 1/8" jack?

The tech brief on the US15W chipset implies Intel HD Audio with 4 audio streams of up to 16 channels each, 32-bit depth, and 192Khz sample rate... but I also know that it's expecting to be hooked up to a hardware codec which is why the fit-pc2 doesn't have digital audio on board, no room in that tiny package for a separate piece of audio hardware.

So where does that leave us in terms of audio capability? We may not know the truth until one of us gets their hands on it and can do a review.

Personally, I'm probably going to use this as a wireless router or webserver so the audio or lack thereof doesn't matter much to me, but it's a good question anyways.

-Fluffy

PS: I remember the Creative Live! I had one back when I was using linux as a desktop and quite loved that card... *sigh* those were the days.

irads

Re: Flash videos

Post by irads »

In fit-PC2 the US15W is connected to Realtek ALC260 HD Audio codec.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/prod ... &ProdID=39

godrik
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 8:37 pm

Re: Flash videos

Post by godrik »

The problem of the being able to use a single sound source is not a linux problem, just an ubuntu problem. It is related to bad configuration of pulse audio. removing pulse audio and telling all the applications to use alsa instead solves the problem.

Charybdis
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:11 pm

Re: Flash videos

Post by Charybdis »

Dear Admin,

could you point your browser to Vimeo.com/hd and try out some Flash HD videos on full screen on FitPC2?

Just make sure the video is fully downloaded, because it can lag if it is not fully downloaded. Also make sure it is full screen (video size must be 1280x720), click on the little square in the bottom right corner in the flash video. Also click on the "HD on/off" button, because by default it is not HD-quality. Thanks!

Do the videos play smoothly?

Charybdis
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:11 pm

Re: Flash videos

Post by Charybdis »

Charybdis wrote:Dear Admin,

could you point your browser to Vimeo.com/hd and try out some Flash HD videos on full screen on FitPC2?

Just make sure the video is fully downloaded, because it can lag if it is not fully downloaded. Also make sure it is full screen (video size must be 1280x720), click on the little square in the bottom right corner in the flash video. Also click on the "HD on/off" button, because by default it is not HD-quality. Thanks!

Do the videos play smoothly?
Then I assume the computer cannot play smoothly the above videos.

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