hi,

anybody knows whether x5 will suport H.264 soon? maybe unofficial firmware feature?

zxc

The iAudio X5 can't decode more than 15 FPS with XviD, so I don't think it has the CPU power to decode H.264 (which is supposed to be more complex).

but is this a software or hardware issue?

zxc

Seems to me that it's more like hardware issue, since iAudio's CPU (which is based on Motorola's SCF5250, AFAIR) operates at 120 MHz at max, and H.264 is far too complex for that.
iPod Video is based on another (high performance) architecture which allows it to decode H.264, though I don't know the specifics.

iPod Video uses PortalPlayer for audio and a dedicated chip for video decoding.

Broadcom, if i remember correctly. It actually supports 640x480 h264 and MPEG4 decoding and apparently encoding. (though unclear what resolution) http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/video-ipod.ars/6

H.264 support is possible. QuickTime7 (x264 has also this profile via MEGui) Baseline profile + 1Bframes is less complex but still better than MPEG-4 ASP. From december of 2005 there is very fast decoder of H.264 http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=104277 . Even faster than MPEG-4 ASP decoders.

Hmm, that'd be cool if it were actually possible and implemented then. It'd be yet another plus for the iAudio X5

I didn't know about the dedicated chip, thanks.

iPod only supports h.264 (with many restrictions) up to 320x240 resolution.

I see everywhere people, who think a firmware upgrade will be able to add support for new formats. This is in most cases impossible, especially with video. I know, that iRiver was able to add support for OGG Vorbis to their older CD/MP3 players and iAudio A2 now supports FLAC. But such things are very rare.

For video you need a specialised HW decoder chip. So replacing a software won't help. You would need to replace the decoder chip.

so, are you saying that it is impossible to implement h.264 support for x5?

zxc

Well yeah, utterly impossible.
It all depends on two things: whether the company wants to utilise its player's hardware to the fullest, and who develops the firmware. iRiver H300 was not able to decode video at the launch, it was added later as an official firmware upgrade. On the other hand, Rockbox added support for a dozen of new formats, minus WMA and video decoding (though they said some day video decoding will be there), so now the question is whether the X5 hardware itself is capable of realtime decoding of H.264 video.