I have the 68k AOS Source too, i cant find it on aminet anymore.
Its maybe too from the amidog page.

Anyhow. I would appreciate if MPlayer authors wouldn't try to reverse-engineer our codecs:

Pegasus Motion JPEG  MJPG  pvmjpg21.dll  -
Pegasus lossless JPEG  JPGL
MJPG  pvljpg20.dll  -
Pegasus Motion Wavelet 2000  PVW2  pvwv220.dll  -

(-;

Well, I know nothing about your issues with reverse-engineering the codecs you mention, but as I stated clearly "for me personally" it's the best. I had the chance to use many different players on even more platforms and I came to the conclusion that MPlayer fits all my needs, including DVD playback. It's fast and reliable and the usage is really user-friendly. That's all. I don't see why "average guy" might find MPlayer "not exactly usable" and the opposite with Xine? They are similiar and do pretty much the same things. So why your judgement on MPlayer part?

Przemek Tkaczyk wrote:

but as I stated clearly "for me personally" it's the best. I had the chance to use many different players on even more platforms and I came to the conclusion that MPlayer fits all my needs, including DVD playback. It's fast and reliable and the usage is really user-friendly. That's all. I don't see why "average guy" might find MPlayer "not exactly usable" and the opposite with Xine? They are similiar and do pretty much the same things. So why your judgement on MPlayer part?

Xine-ui is a pretty nice, usable front-end for controlling the core. Mplayer - well, if it ever had something like a GUI, I haven't found out how to activate it or how to compile it. I get a bare-bone empty window, hopefully showing the content, with some type of keyboard control that is nowhere explained, and error messages junking my console.

I'm not trying to say that Mplayer is technically bad - it supports a wide range of codecs - but that I don't consider the mplayer *I have* usable in any way.

I think that was Thomas' attempt at reverse psychology :D

And why? Google says even real Time coding of H.264 HD is possible with an 120MHZ FPGA, for decoding 100MHZ is enough.

Creating a BluRay decoder on an FPGA would take a LOT of development time and probably also a LOT of FPGA chip space.

This is very unlikely. First of all, the codecs required for blu ray are pretty complex, i.e. for example h.264 is one of them, and you shouldn't expect such code to run fast enough on a slow CPU. Even a five year old PC will have its problems.
Second, ignoring all performance issues, blu rays are encrypted by running parts of the decryption algorithm on a virtual machine which also requires full emulation, and which still requires you to (illegally) obtain keys. On a PC, it requires a fully encrypted playback signal chain from the drive through the graphics card to the monitor, which also likely requires certification.

I guess nobody in the team will be able or willing invest money into getting the right certificates for this, leave alone writing all the software.

So, after all, it is very very very unlikely that the system will ever play blu rays.

Even that will require some work, but it is likely not impossible if some compromises are made (i.e. no scaling for example).

DVDs use an older encoding, though a "play back protection" that has been hacked a long time ago, and is thus not a real challenge anymore. The major problem is probably the amount of "non-DVDs" flodding the market, i.e. DVDs that do not follow the specs to avoid copying and that just work in players by "pure chance".

It was always talked here about Coprocessors in the FPGA that can do decoding stuff..

Maybe its not required to do everything of the decoding in the
FPGA.
About chip space its 02.11.2011, so we can say again the Natami
will not come on the next announced(or "planned") X-Mas.
Who knows how cheap FPGA space is next year.
Its always talked about they became cheaper and cheaper.

About Blurays, i think they will not have a long live.
If sometimes the Internet get fast for all, Movies will get
buyable for Download like mp3s.
But my Videos and Videos from my Camera are H.264 and not copyprotected. Satellite Receivers Records too in H.264.

By "best" I mean the most optimized and cpu efficient player that does not crash.

The most players use the mpega.library.
You have to select the right from Stephane TAVENARD or you get
for all players a cpu intensive Playback.
I use MakeCD for Playback a list of mp3s.
Filemaster for single mp3s while searching a Song for example.
Amplifier(OS3.9) works too but has bugs.

At all the mpega.library style is not very efficent cause it needs much to many calls.