Database Info

Q-See Security Camera Viewing

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet that actually has a set up like this... if I'm wrong, please post... there is no information out there about this old application.
I have a home surveillance system setup using 2 Q See DVR cards. Q See was nice enough to make a Windows Mobile 2003 application called "Pocket Camera" that connects to the Super DVR software used to record the cameras. You type in your IP and port, username and password and it connects to your home DVR system. Then it gives you a drop down list of the cameras you can view.
The software worked perfectly... until I got a VGA device. It only seems to work on qVGA. I know its a long shot... but does anyone know how to get this to work on a VGA device? The network portion works fine... it connects, authenticates and even gets the list of cameras. The software just has an issue rendering the video since (I think) it is expecting qVGA resolution.
Thanks!

Just wanted to post an update in case anyone is having this issue.
I emailed Qsee tech support and they actually called me back! I was amazed. It turns out that I was right and their old code does not support the new phones that have VGA resolutions. They said they were going to send this to their programmers for feedback. Hopefully they get it fixed, being able to view my cameras on my phone has been FANTASTIC.
If anyone has any idea on how to emulate a qvga screen on a vga device, please share.

I have not had any luck (as you had) with Q-see's tech support. In fact, it took nearly 5 weeks of daily emails and testing before they finally admitted to me that their software would not run on a vga device. Anyway, I installed ie 6.1 (I found a cab here) and it *for whatever reason* runs the pocket camera program.
pete

Since my last update, I've had horrible support from Q-See. They are not the strong customer service group I thought they were. I've had nothing but problems for the last 4 months... but I was just recently able to get this thing working on the vga touch pro 2 AND on windows XP.
I had to update to the newest version of SuperDVR, disable all of the activex protections so you can run their UNSIGNED ACTIVEX control. Why they refuse to sign the activex, I will never understand.
However, the cab that comes with the new SuperDVR actually works in VGA.
Basically, Q-See support sucks, but installing the new superdvr worked.

Did you have to buy the SuperDVR? I cannot find it on their website, or anywhere else for that matter.

scottmail said:
Did you have to buy the SuperDVR? I cannot find it on their website, or anywhere else for that matter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to www.q-see.com and click on products
Then pick PC based DVR systems
Then pick your card
Then at the bottom, there is a table that has info in it. One of the column headers is "software".
Here is a direct link, but I don't know how long it will work. They seem to change their software direct links quite often and it keeps breaking my bookmarks.
Super DVR 6.2.2.4

Graphics APIs for WM6

Hello,
I've spent the last month trying desperately to find a free 2D (or 3D, but not required) graphics API I can use for high performance games on Windows Mobile. I initially set about trying to find a managed API to use, but now I've broadened my search to include any API (that I can call from C++ or .NET), and I'm still struggling to find anything.
The options seem to be:
- GDI: not nearly fast enough for high performance games
- DirectDraw: probably OK, but doesn't seem possible to use this on my HTC Touch Pro 2 due to memory problems (see http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2009/04/17/twisted-pixels-3-memory-mysteries.aspx -- I've got the same problem and have not yet found any way to work around this)
- Direct3D: no hardware driver on my Touch Pro 2, this renders about 0.2 frames per second in the samples, which is not good enough
- OpenGL: I've tried and tried, and can't get any samples working for this. The closest I've found is the tutorials here: http://www.zeuscmd.com/tutorials/opengles/index.php, but these all fail with an error, "Unable to create OpenGL|ES context" as soon as I run them (or alternatively using the "Ug" version, I get no window appearing at all).
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can progress from here? I really want to write some Windows Mobile games, but I can't even get started. :-(
Thanks,
Adam.

For 'better' graphics performance have a look at the 2D/3D Driver Development for MSM720X devices!
After installation of this driver pack try my OpenGL test app (source also available) found in my sig! Installing this driver pack will increase d3d performance, too!

Hi heliosdev,
Many thanks for posting the sourcecode for your OpenGL test -- I have that compiling very nicely here and producing very promising results too. I think this may finally be the answer I've been looking for.
Do you have any idea how much of a performance hit using PInvoke to interact with OGLES is likely to be? I don't know whether PInvoke is slow to use or not, but it strikes me that it may be slower use it hundreds of times per frame compared to coding directly in C++ and not needing to PInvoke at all..?
Thanks again,
Adam.

For comparison NuShrike implemented torus test in C++. As you can see the difference is 'minimal' even NuShrike optimized it using vertex buffer objects (I'm using standard vertex arrays and just triangles, i.e. no triangle strips).

Camera - Manual Focus

Hello devs!
I wonder if anyone is interested in/capable of implementing a manual focus feature in android, at least for G1. Hardware-wise, I think it is probably feasible since (the great dev) DZO has already done it for the Kaiser (and I have seen it in action)!
CLARIFICATION EDIT: by Manual Focus I mean controlling the focal length, not just triggering the autofocus. For example, on the Kaiser, dzo has mapped the up/down side-wheel to focus-farther/focus-nearer!
See here the source code commit.
It would be great if the implementation introduced a relevant Java-level API, or extent the current Camera API.
My idea is to use this feature to fix-focus the camera, just a few centimeters away and make barcode scanning faster, not relying so much on auto-focusing. But I'm sure that there are plenty more useful stuff that can be done with manual focus (e.g. inspiring/artistic photo captures).
I'm rather new in android-dev and not experienced enough (yet) to work on the below-Java space, that's why I'm kindly asking for someone else to have a look at it
any thoughts?
have fun,
hypest

This is a great idea. Hope to see someone working on it.

This would be awesome! Espcially for photographers like muah

lapalways05 said:
This would be awesome! Espcially for photographers like muah
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Photographers use shoddy-quality 3MPx cameras? Is your dSLR in the shop or something?

MattKilla said:
Photographers use shoddy-quality 3MPx cameras? Is your dSLR in the shop or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, but it's not in my pocket most or all of the time, either. In a pinch, between 3Mpixel and 0Mpixel, the photographer will usually choose the former.

marxmarv said:
No, but it's not in my pocket most or all of the time, either. In a pinch, between 3Mpixel and 0Mpixel, the photographer will usually choose the former.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah exactly. I love my dSLR to death, but I can't always have that beast with me. My phone is ALWAYS with me. I would a lot rather take a quick shot with it than no shot at all.
To the OP. Look in the android source repo at the camera code. Or is the G1 camera drivers in the closed source area? I know the actual camera driver is (thats why 2.X didnt have a camera at first) but is the AF code there too?

As the phone has auto focus i see no reason why manual focus couldn't be coded in.
In fact, i'm surprised no one has done it yet. I remember it being done on my old LG Viewty (that had a fantastic camera) and my SE k750i and was great for the really close up shots that the auto focus can't normally achieve.

Ok I looked at the code. Here is the camera code for the MSM7xxx chips:
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=pl...=libcamera/QualcommCameraHardware.cpp;hb=HEAD
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=pl...;f=libcamera/QualcommCameraHardware.h;hb=HEAD
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=pl...a=blob_plain;f=libcamera/camera_ifc.h;hb=HEAD
If you look at the first one, it does all its autofocus calls thru libqcamera. That is one of the proprietary HTC/Qualcomm drivers. Here is the code:
Code:
status_t QualcommCameraHardware::autoFocus(autofocus_callback af_cb,
void *user)
{
LOGV("Starting auto focus.");
Mutex::Autolock l(&mLock);
Mutex::Autolock lock(&mStateLock);
if (mCameraState != QCS_PREVIEW_IN_PROGRESS) {
LOGE("Invalid camera state %s: expecting QCS_PREVIEW_IN_PROGRESS,"
" cannot start autofocus!",
getCameraStateStr(mCameraState));
return INVALID_OPERATION;
}
if (mAutoFocusCallback != NULL) {
LOGV("Auto focus is already in progress");
return mAutoFocusCallback == af_cb ? NO_ERROR : INVALID_OPERATION;
}
mAutoFocusCallback = af_cb;
mAutoFocusCallbackCookie = user;
LINK_camera_start_focus(CAMERA_AUTO_FOCUS, camera_cb, this);
return NO_ERROR;
}
First off you can see its calling the QualcommCameraHardware library which is libqcamera and then the method autoFocus. I think this is a dead end.
However, for 2.X we reverse engineered the drivers since we didn't have them available. They are open source. We may be able to look at them and get how they use the AF code.

Geniusdog254, thanx for sharing your thoughts, info and findings.
I'm assuming here: if the AF is done in software, even in proprietry drivers, it may indeed be possible to use it by RE it. Best case scenario would be to find functions lingering in there, waiting to be called
I'm wondering though, if the IOCTL's dzo is using are directly triggering hardware "switches", or are they handled in the drivers...
Could you please also share links to the open sourced 2.x driver?

Geniusdog254 said:
First off you can see its calling the QualcommCameraHardware library which is libqcamera and then the method autoFocus. I think this is a dead end.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe not. I vaguely remember that the HTC camera app from CM 4.0 or 4.1 would allow you to switch between autofocus and infinity focus. Maybe that's a start?

I found these symbols in the libqcamera.so on my CM g1 (and highlighted some interesting ones):
Code:
af_algo_config
af_algo_execution
af_algo_preview
af_check_aec_settled_cnt
[SIZE="5"][B]af_do_move_lens[/B][/SIZE]
af_done
af_do_process_exhaustive_search
af_do_process_hill_climbing
[SIZE="5"][B]af_do_reset_lens[/B][/SIZE]
af_do_safe_move
af_init_process_exhaustive_search
af_init_process_hill_climbing
af_is_active
[SIZE="5"][B]af_move_lens_to[/B][/SIZE]
af_process_focus_sensor
af_process_lens_move_done
af_process_start_focus
af_process_stats
af_read_process_type
af_read_sharpness
af_start_stats
af_stop_focus
seems to me that maybe there are suitable means for manipulating the lens/focus.
I've attached the whole readelf dump...

I'd love to see this implimented

I think that if with proprietary drivers we can't manually move the hardware, perhaps we can indirectly trick it into focusing closer, thinking that it's "autofocusing" on a close object. Either one of these methods is a bit of a longshot with a proprietary driver, but they are both worth exploring. I'd LOVE to see some control over the focus of the camera, and if we can't do it with the AOSP code, let's look at Hero.... it offers significantly more focus control, with touch-to-focus. I haven't even glanced at the code there, though, so I have no idea. I'm just throwing thoughts at the wall in hopes that one of them will stick.

Here is the code for the opensource, reverse engineered driver for eclair. Have it at, I may look & post my findings:
http://gitorious.org/eclair-camera-drivers
EDIT: Well of course I'm looking at it lol, I can't resist.
Look on line 345 of this page (they're numbered): http://gitorious.org/eclair-camera-...are_msm7k/blobs/master/libcamera/camera_ifc.h
CAMERA_PARM_FOCUS_STEP is defined. It sounds like a way to step the focus forward/backward but I don't know which way.
Also, there is a LOT of interesting things in here, including some that our hardware doesn't support, so take it with a grain of salt (it has flash & all kinds of stuff, pretty much a generic Qualcomm camera driver). Anyways, here are some of the interesting ones;
CAMERA_PARM_ISO, (duh)
CAMERA_PARM_APERTURE, (maybe change aperture speed for better shots?)
CAMERA_PARM_SHUTTER_SPEED, (better response time?)
CAMERA_PARM_HISTOGRAM, (not useful for me, but neat)
CAMERA_PARM_FPS_LIST, (this one is defined under a video section, maybe change frame rate??)
Neat huh?
Anyway, the really cool part is line 405-409:
typedef enum
{
CAMERA_AUTO_FOCUS,
CAMERA_MANUAL_FOCUS
} camera_focus_e_type;
Now I can't tell you what all this means, but I can read & tell you that that does say manual focus where it defines the options for focus type
Also, ISO options are; MAX, HIGH, DEBLUR, 100, 200, 400, 800. There are also some WB settings that we don't have available, here is the full list; AUTO, CUSTOM, INCANDESCENT, FLUORESCENT, DAYLIGHT, CLOUDY_DAYLIGHT, TWILIGHT, SHADE, MAX_PLUS_1. Most of those are available in the 1.5 HTC based camera apps, but twilight & shade aren't.
Actually speaking of the HTC camera, it does almost EVERYTHING mentioned in this code. It misses a few of them, as I said, but it has debanding, WB, brightness. It is just missing the ISO (different from brightness, I promise).
This is about all I know, that its REALLY interesting to look through, and that we should make a camera app that can use all this

Also, just to say in my last post, I DO know what all of those camera terms mean, I'm a photo buff, I just put them in terms that apply to the G1

Bump. Isn't there any other interest in this? I don't have the experience nor the time to do this, but I REALLY want it. I already looked at the code & did a writeup. Surely someone can do it...

Geniusdog254 said:
Bump. Isn't there any other interest in this? I don't have the experience nor the time to do this, but I REALLY want it. I already looked at the code & did a writeup. Surely someone can do it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Geniusdog254,
thanx for sharing your findings! I guess is just a matter of (spare) time. I'm personally (but slowly) trying to get into kernel building (and low-level dev in general) so to try these myself...
An already experienced and interested fellow dev would certainly help if he/she came forward

I am very interested in this as well. Has any progress been made?

lapalways05 said:
This would be awesome! Espcially for photographers like muah
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are a photographer and rely on a phone camera something tells me oyu dont get much work.

My only advice at this point is to change the title of the thread to [Think Tank] camera manual focus... you'll get more devs to glance at it.

[REQ] Developers need help cooking rom

Hey I was wondering if a dev would port the camera and the framework required from the vodaphone 1.5 rom, to the fenderV2 rom which is 1.6.
As the vodaphone rom has got the new camera zoom and focus. And I would like it to work in the fenderV2 rom.
So if any of you have the time can you port the camera over to FenderV2 I chose that rom because its stable and has htc music, I feel it will also benefit other members with the focus feature on a 1.6 firmware.
Thanks for listening,
Codex
P.s. If you don't have time thens that's ok but is it possible to do a howto in this thread of doing it.

You would just end up back on a 1.5 rom. For the most part the framework is the base of the rom which is where the version comes from.

Is there any 1.6-based rom that uses HTC's camera software?
Before 2.0/2.1, all I can remember is the Tattoo, but that was a Sense rom, and it requires far more of the framework than a Vodafone/Rogers build would require.

jubeh said:
Is there any 1.6-based rom that uses HTC's camera software?
Before 2.0/2.1, all I can remember is the Tattoo, but that was a Sense rom, and it requires far more of the framework than a Vodafone/Rogers build would require.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this

Btw, don't give into the "zoom" frenzy with cameraphones. With Samsung and a few others being the notable exceptions (I'm drooling over the yet-to-be-announced Samsung Halo), the phones use merely digital zoom, which, if you talk to anybody who knows their stuff, is nothing but coding junk. You get the same effect (maybe even better) using video-editing software.
For the focus, the Dream's camera is a two-stage camera button, and that function is disabled on HTC's camera software. Personally, I use that button a lot and get better pictures with it (I can hold the focus until the shot I want is ready), but I guess it's a matter of personal taste.
I'd like to see better video encoding done for the Android's camera. Winmo phones have registry tweaks to allow for better video recording. I wonder why it hasn't been tried for the Dream (mostly because it requires modifying the source, I believe)...
---edit---
Oh, dang, no optical zoom on the Halo, bummer. It's got a projector and 16 GB internal storage though. If it's like the Galaxy, then 1 GB is for apps. That phone will make me glad I had so many problems with my N1 order and ended up not getting one.

[Q] a simple question about android...

I have a simple question about Android in which I have not found the simple answer to... (Although I think I know, I just want some clarification). I recently switched over to Windows Phone 7 because of various reasons, I will not name them here as that is an entirely different subject, however one of the reasons i switched was because of overall responsiveness of the OS. Why does Android's touch response feel sooo clunky? Yeah transitions and app launches are nice and quick, but I mean like pinch-to-zoom, and scrolling... I have played with the latest and greatest both rooted (with and without custom rom) and non rooted (with or without OEM UI), Motorola Xoom, Atrix 4G whatever is being claimed latest and greatest. But no matter what they all have the same touch response lag no matter what. This, believe it or not, is a major deal breaker for me, and before the majority of you speak, I'll speak for you; "why is something so simple and small, barely even considered a nuisance, be such a nuisance?" for me, i love fluidity, so, it just is. At this question however i do retort; if its such a "simple" or "small" nuisance, why can't it "simply" be coded to feel as fluid as Windows Phone 7, or iOS?

Luisraul924 said:
I have a simple question about Android in which I have not found the simple answer to... (Although I think I know, I just want some clarification). I recently switched over to Windows Phone 7 because of various reasons, I will not name them here as that is an entirely different subject, however one of the reasons i switched was because of overall responsiveness of the OS. Why does Android's touch response feel sooo clunky? Yeah transitions and app launches are nice and quick, but I mean like pinch-to-zoom, and scrolling... I have played with the latest and greatest both rooted (with and without custom rom) and non rooted (with or without OEM UI), Motorola Xoom, Atrix 4G whatever is being claimed latest and greatest. But no matter what they all have the same touch response lag no matter what. This, believe it or not, is a major deal breaker for me, and before the majority of you speak, I'll speak for you; "why is something so simple and small, barely even considered a nuisance, be such a nuisance?" for me, i love fluidity, so, it just is. At this question however i do retort; if its such a "simple" or "small" nuisance, why can't it "simply" be coded to feel as fluid as Windows Phone 7, or iOS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will try to answer since I've been using android before. android now as I believe is still in development stage. especially because it started from open source, where many developers get involved to participate in android development. unlike windows or the IOS platform. development is only done by the company itself through microsoft and apple. Except for third-party application development
android is a system (for run smoothly) with very powerful hardware. so that the source code would require a very complicated of encoding. Its a very difficult job to sync between the needs of software with hardware which is available. and vice versa. in an application such as pinching and scrolling there is more than one command which contains a lot of code. and should be remembered that this is a system. which are all related to each other for the overall operations to run smoothly based on the minimum demand of the hardware required. if there is one character in which is wrong of encoding or difference may cause the application not running properly.
for high-end android device such as Xoom, atrik 4G I'm sure the hardware is not an issue. I'm sure it was more caused by the complexity of encoding in one of the applications listed that is running inside in the whole operating system, making it not running smoothly. because so many commands which must be running at the same time is what make pinching and scrolling activity to be "clunky" like you said. you can differentiate by turning off the internet connection or turn off unnecessary applications running in the background. But I'm sure very soon android operating system will have a system which is more stable and efficient in encoding such as those held by the windows or apple.
My answer may be added by other members of the more expert in these matters. as a newbie, i am just trying to help based on the knowledge I had acquired over the years. CMIIW

Yeah I figured it would be something like that, I owned a Droid (1st gen.) and I had multiple setups from completely stock to my favorite, Cyanogenmod (always on the latest stable build, although I've already flashed CM7 RC2 and its probably the fastest its ever been at 800 MHz) everything was perfect except; scrolling and pinch-to-zoom. The scrolling is almost there, it actually lags for a bit but if I leave my finger on the page, it locks on to that position and stays there, but once I lift it to continue scrolling down or up it'll lag a bit again. The pinch zooming is just horrible no matter what. Unfortunately, given the nature of open source, and coding software in general, there is no such thing as "finished" software, so since this is open source, and the software is basically written to run on "nearly" whatever device you choose to flash it on, i don't think that problem will ever be solved. However, if Android does eventually reach that richness of responsiveness, then i will more than gladly switch back.

issues of a system running smoothly is different from one device to another device.
due to the wide variety of different android devices that causes the emergence of issues on the system stability. it was time to google as the main developer sets the standards for the development of next android os. while there is no standardization of hardware is set by google. it will be very difficult for other developers to write code/adjust performance in the operating system command. all this time writing code is must be adapted to the device from vendor itself. This will bring up the differences result of writing the code on other devices from another vendors (competitors). so if we running bencmark test or head to head test on both devices from different vendor the result will not be the same.
and if there will be a standarization set by google i believed it will not againts a spirit of an open source

I think the hardware that the WinCE (well...the shoe still fits) and Android phones are made on is essentially the same, in terms of the CPU power, the actual CPUs, the memory and the various other systems (graphics, etc.). Maybe not identical but overlapping classes and performance.
I haven't played with the new WinPhones but have noticed that every Android phone, no matter how fast and how "bare" factory, sometimes goes out to lunch. Apparently that's just the way the OS is written, it sometimes goes off to do other things internally (loading code? checking hardware states?) and you can't do anything except wait for it to come back.
But then again, almost every OS does that at times, including the main Windows OSes. That's just how they are done these days. If you had a cell phone fifteen year ago, you could turn it on and dial NOW. With any of the new cell phones? Can you do a cold power up and have a functioning phone in less than 30 seconds? Uh, no. But they call that progress, because you rarely have to power them off these days.
Every OS has tradeoffs, if the WinPhone makes you happier, by all means do it.

Rred said:
I think the hardware that the WinCE (well...the shoe still fits) and Android phones are made on is essentially the same, in terms of the CPU power, the actual CPUs, the memory and the various other systems (graphics, etc.). Maybe not identical but overlapping classes and performance.
I haven't played with the new WinPhones but have noticed that every Android phone, no matter how fast and how "bare" factory, sometimes goes out to lunch. Apparently that's just the way the OS is written, it sometimes goes off to do other things internally (loading code? checking hardware states?) and you can't do anything except wait for it to come back.
But then again, almost every OS does that at times, including the main Windows OSes. That's just how they are done these days. If you had a cell phone fifteen year ago, you could turn it on and dial NOW. With any of the new cell phones? Can you do a cold power up and have a functioning phone in less than 30 seconds? Uh, no. But they call that progress, because you rarely have to power them off these days.
Every OS has tradeoffs, if the WinPhone makes you happier, by all means do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you, I do like both OS's for their own benefits, currently I do like WP7 better than Android and keeps me "happy". However if you notice; that's not my prime motive in starting this thread, I didn't come here to say one is better than the other. I just want to know why those two simple things (scrolling and pinch zooming) are not fluid on Android. You can't use the excuse that it's different hardware because Microsoft is playing that trick too. You can't use the "its busy doing other things" excuse either, while WP7 doesn't have multi-tasking, iOS does (somewhat) so it can go "do" something else but will still feel fluid. In a multi-OEM environment it is up to the OEM to optimize it for the device it runs on, which is why it baffles me that even Sense and MotoBlur and others make performance decline a bit and still has the lag. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

Nothing? So no one can tell me why Android's responsiveness (scrolling, pinch-zooming) sucks?

Luisraul924 said:
Nothing? So no one can tell me why Android's responsiveness (scrolling, pinch-zooming) sucks?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The answer is quite simple (and the above replies are miles off the mark). Hardware acceleration.
WP7 has it, Android doesn't.

FloatingFatMan said:
The answer is quite simple (and the above replies are miles off the mark). Hardware acceleration.
WP7 has it, Android doesn't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So the hardware acceleration runs throughout the entire OS? I thought it was mainly just the XNA and Silverlight stuff that was accelerated (I do believe those are different than native OS code, as Microsoft isnt allowing developers to write apps with native code. Future compatibility issues I guess)

Of course it's the entire OS. Why do you think MS's minimum spec stipulations are so high? This is what Windows Mobile was so plagued with, and how MS fixed that problem.

Luis-
"So the hardware acceleration runs throughout the entire OS?"
It isn't so much that the hardware acceleration runs in the OS, but that the hardware itself has certain routines built into it, on the firmware level, so the OS can just call those routines instead of trying to calculate them.
To oversimplify a bit, for instance, a hardware accelerator for "zoom in" might be programmed into the video chip system to automatically tell it "take the 50 pixels around this spot and blow up up to 250 pixels, refresh screen" where the OS would be saying "OK, let's take this spot, draw a square with a 50 pixel radius around it, now let's take each of those pixels and transpose it over twice the radius and go fill..." sending a long slow string of commands, each computed by the CPU.
When the CPU can offload all of that into a simple "zoom" command to the video chip, the CPU is now free to do other things. Like, respond to your next input, or push the next menu onto the display.
When you have ironclad control over the hardware--it can be a great way to make systems faster. And more stable.

Rred said:
Luis-
"So the hardware acceleration runs throughout the entire OS?"
It isn't so much that the hardware acceleration runs in the OS, but that the hardware itself has certain routines built into it, on the firmware level, so the OS can just call those routines instead of trying to calculate them.
To oversimplify a bit, for instance, a hardware accelerator for "zoom in" might be programmed into the video chip system to automatically tell it "take the 50 pixels around this spot and blow up up to 250 pixels, refresh screen" where the OS would be saying "OK, let's take this spot, draw a square with a 50 pixel radius around it, now let's take each of those pixels and transpose it over twice the radius and go fill..." sending a long slow string of commands, each computed by the CPU.
When the CPU can offload all of that into a simple "zoom" command to the video chip, the CPU is now free to do other things. Like, respond to your next input, or push the next menu onto the display.
When you have ironclad control over the hardware--it can be a great way to make systems faster. And more stable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great answer. Makes sense, thanks. Now given that this is an Android section lets talk more on that, will it ever be possible to have hardware acceleration on Android, Whether it be through custom ROMs or OEM devices?

"will it ever be possible to have hardware acceleration on Android,"
Possible? Sure, I've seen pigs on the wing.<G> Don't hold your breath for it though. Android is an unruly place where even ordinary hardware is often not supported by the OS and software breaks on every new phone. In order for hardware acceleration to work, the OS needs to have routines and drivers for standard hardware, which means locking down a hardware spec. Which is so very Undroid.
Can't see that happening, unless ten year from now someone invents a "standard universal Android cell phone chipset" and all the manufacturers get paid to exclusively use it. That's the ticket--use our chipset, we'll pay you to use it, and oh, yes, it will play one of "our" ads every time your screen turns on. Or you launch a new app. Or place a call.
(See? Things could get worse!<G>)

Here's an interesting discussion...
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914

burtcom said:
Here's an interesting discussion...
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914
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Well as far as I read, it was just a bunch of "me too" and "I agree" lol I got bored reading that I still dont think Google has an official statement on the matter do they?