Beagle Board Codec Engine

http://ossie.wireless.vt.edu/trac/wiki/BeagleBoard_CodecEngine

The above link has instructions about setting up the Beagle Board Codec Engine.

Codec Engine is necessary in order to make use of onboard TI TMS320C64x+ DSP, which is a DSP on the Beagle Board.
This enables an user to make use of beagle board's DSP in order to decode video and audio.
Using DSP to decode video help to meet real-time playback of a video stream.

The above link also has instructions regarding running some sample applications provided with the files.
It also has instructions about building your own DSP Link file.

Other Boards

Here are some boards which are similar to that of Beagle Board.

Hawk Board
hawkboard.org

• Dual Core SoC
  • 300-MHz ARM926EJ-S™ RISC MPU
  • 300-MHz C674x VLIW DSP
• ARM926EJ-S Core
  • 32-Bit and 16-Bit (Thumb®) Instructions
  • DSP Instruction Extensions
  • Single Cycle MAC
  • ARM® Jazelle® Technology
  • EmbeddedICE-RT™ for Real-Time Debug
• ARM9 Memory Architecture
• C674x Instruction Set Features
  • Superset of the C67x+™ and C64x+™ ISAs
  • 2400/1800 C674x MIPS/MFLOPS
  • Byte-Addressable (8-/16-/32-/64-Bit Data)
  • 8-Bit Overflow Protection
  • Bit-Field Extract, Set, Clear
  • Normalization, Saturation, Bit-Counting
  • Compact 16-Bit Instructions
• C674x Two Level Cache Memory Architecture
  • 32K-Byte L1P Program RAM/Cache

This board is capable of producing VGA resolution, and you can even attach a SATA hard drive on this board.



Leopard Board
leopardboard.org

• 10/100 Ethernet Port
• USB 2.0 (can be used to power the board or as expansion)
• JTAG and Serial ports for debugging
• SD memory card support (also supports SDIO)
• Stereo audio In/Out
• Expansion connector for customer add-on feature
• Composite TV Output
• LCD/DVI Interface
• Support 720p at 30pfs
• VGA Camera board (included)
• Support wide range of video resolutions from VGA, 1.3M, 2M, 3M to 5 Mega-pixel CMOS Sensors (High resolution camera boards available seperately)
• Royalty-free open source 2A functions

This board has some good expansion features such as camera board.
Also it can be used as an input device for camera, with a beagle board. Basically like a stand-alone camera, with its own video decoder.

Switching Displays

Display outputs from the beagle board can be switched between DVI-D and S-video.
S-video output can be used to connect the beagle board to a standard TV
DVI-D output can be used for DVI-D monitor or Pico Projector

Instructions regarding switching video outputs between DVI-D and S-video can be found at http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/LinuxHints

Win32 Disk Imager

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Win32DiskImager

This is a GUI interface program, which can be used in windows in order to read and write images from SD card. It can also be used to write boot images, on a USB drive. This program can save an SD card image in .img format, so that one does not have to repeat the image building process all over again, such as partitioning SD card, coping root files.

Boot images and SD card images are used on the beagle board in order to run demos. Storing images in an SD card is handy. It enables an user to switch demos, by switching the SD card with another with a different image.

Video-Whale Project

http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/apps/videowhale.html

This project is about video-wall which uses a combined power of GStreamer, and Xinerama. In this project, every group of 4 monitors are controlled by one machine.

Beagle board is easy to transport and it has a capability of a PC. Controlling a group of 4 monitors using beagle board needs less room and is handy. Beagle board is also capable of producing HD graphics.

The same thing might be possible with Bealge Board. On the IRC channel, # bealge, IRC nicks koen, av500, were discussing about it.
The discussion thread can be found at http://www.beagleboard.org/irclogs/index.php?date=2009-11-23#T13:03:01

Beagle Board Experiments

http://sites.google.com/site/puppyswebsiteA/Home

The above link is IRC nick, puppy's website. The link has some experiments conducted by puppy on beagle board. One of his experiments is Beagle Board, with external power supply, 4-port USB hubs, µChameleon board, and a audio amplifier.
Audio amplifier is a useful tool in order to improve the quality of the sound output from beagle board, since beagle board does not have its own amplifier.

An OTG switch showed in the above link can be used to switch between beagle board becoming an end device or a server.

One of his experiments also consists of a low acceleration 3 dimensional G-force acceleration sensor, which can be used to make a 3D mouse. The X-axis and Y-axis can be used to move the mouse. The Z-axis can be used to zoom in / zoom out.
One useful application for this experiment can be using beagle board, as a presentation tool because of its 3-dimensional G-force acceleration sensor. For example, presenting a 3D drawing on a projector. This can enable a user to move, rotate, zoom in/out the drawing while presenting instead of going near the computer in order to do these type of operations.

Puppy is focused on using Data Acquisition boards to build and test circuits using a reprogrammable environment. They do not need any spealized kind of environment, so using Beagle Board gives portability.

LED Blink

http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardOpenOCD#LED_blink_example

Beagle Board has a series of LED lights. Those can be tested using the LED blink test program, which can be found on the link posted above.
It might be possible to create your own LED flashing pattern.
LED flashing pattern can also be used as a status indicator. One way is that it can be used to indicate whether a particular event has occurred such as boot completion. It can also be used to indicate status of a particular resource such as network connection, bluetooth connection, error detection.

One usage I can think of for this LED blink program is that, it enables an user to use a beagle board outdoors without having to use a laptop or a monitor to see whether a particular program is ready or not.

On the IRC channel, # beagle, IRC nicks GrizzlyAdams, Nader, were discussing about it. The thread can be found at http://www.beagleboard.org/irclogs/index.php?date=2009-11-19#T06:01:50

Realtime Kinematic GPS Receiver

http://gizmodo.com/5405804/make-your-own-real-time-kinematic-gps-receiver-thats-accurate-to-one-centimeter

Researchers Tomoji Takasu and Akio Yasuda of Tokyo university have made a GPS receiver that is accurate to a centimeter. It displays real time information. They used beagle board as a processor.

On the link posted below, there are also instructions on how to make one yourself
http://gpspp.sakura.ne.jp/rtklib/rtklib_beagleboard.htm

Evtest

http://wiki.davincidsp.com/index.php/Evtest
The above link has code and instructions for conducting an Evtest.
Evtest is an open source tool, that can be used to test several different HID drivers and devices such as mouse, keyboard, joystick, touchpad.
Evtest can enable a user to test a particular HID device on beagle board.

It enables an user to test a particular HID device thoroughly such as testing all the keys of a USB keyboard or testing all the axes of a USB mouse.

Instructions regarding how to execute and use Ev test are on this link:
http://wiki.davincidsp.com/index.php/Evtest

In the IRC channel # beagle, IRC nicks super, and prpplague were discussing about it.
The discussion thread can be found at:
http://www.beagleboard.org/irclogs/index.php?date=2009-11-13#T20:11:34

Arago Project

http://arago-project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

The Arago Project targets TI platforms Omap3 and DaVinci. The main goal of the Arago project is to create a product that would be approached by an experienced embedded developer that is new to the Linux Eco-System. At the same time the Linux savvy developer should be able to see how the system was created and be able to tune, change, or expand upon it. This is an overlay of for OpenEmbedded and Angstrom.

Touch Screen digital dashboard

This is a video of a touch screen digital dashboard on a bike. In the IRC channel, Quan-Time, the creator of this interface was talking about doing the same thing on beagle board. http://www.beagleboard.org/irclogs/index.php?date=2009-10-31#T10:23:24

Some equipments used:
1) http://megatunix.sourceforge.net/ Tunning software for gauges
2) http://www.smartvm.com/DVI-D-to-VGA-Converter-P7556.htm DVI-D to VGA convertor.
3) https://www.xenarcdirect.com/product.php?productid=16194 7" touchscreen LCD monitor.

NOTE: Expansion board to install VGA port on beagle board can be found at http://www.beagleboardtoys.com/

Beagle Board Accessories

These are optional accessories for beagle board

http://www.elinux.org/BeagleBoard_Zippy
This is a modified type of beagle board with internet expansion. one can connect the LAN cable directly to the beagle board instead of using a usb hub. It adds the following to the orignal beagle board:

• Battery Backed RTC
• Second MMC slot
• 10BaseT Ethernet
• Second RS-232
• +5V level I2C
• AT24 EEPROM

http://gumstix.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=195
This is a raw LCD which can be used for the beagle board as a display device. It enables a user to use the beagle board without a monitor or a pico projector. Instructions for attaching a raw LCD panel to beagle board: http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardRawLCD

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3060
This is a rechargeable emergency USB battery back-up that can be used to power the beagle board. In this way, beagle board can be powered without connecting a USB power cable. It can also be used where there is no power outlet nearby such as outdoors.

http://www.cambrionix.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=2
This is a 49-port USB hub that can be used on Beagle Board for using a large number of accessories such as USB keyboard, mouse, wiimote, bluetooth dongle, USB flash drive, USB card reader/writer, External USB hard drive.

Beagle Board Recovery

These instructions were derived from
1. http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleboardRevCValidation
2. http://www.sakoman.com/OMAP3/preparing-a-bootable-sd-card.html

FIXING BEAGLE BOARD (restore to factory setting)
------------------------------------------------
1) Make a partition in the mmc card. Use these commands. Make sure that you
have unmounted the SD card before continuing.
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sde
Command (m for help): o
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)
Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sde: 2032 MB, 2032664576 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 984 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00aa8e5c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

NOTE: In order to calculate the # of cylinders, take the # of bytes reported above and use this formula: 2064384/#ofHeads/#ofSectors/bytes_per_sector and round the result

Command (m for help): x
Expert command (m for help): h
Number of heads (1-256, default 4): 255

Expert command (m for help): s
Number of sectors (1-63, default 62): 63
Warning: setting sector offset for DOS compatiblity

Expert command (m for help): c
Number of cylinders (1-1048576, default 984): 247
Expert command (m for help): r

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-247, default 1): 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-247, default 15): +247M
Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): c
Changed system type of partition 1 to c (W95 FAT32 (LBA))
Command (m for help): a
Partition number (1-4): 1
Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sde: 2032 MB, 2032664576 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 247 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00aa8e5c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 * 1 5 40131 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
information.
Syncing disks.
# sudo mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sde1 -n FAT
mkfs.vfat 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)


2) Download the files listed below and save them to a working directory. For these steps assume /home//temp. NOTE: replace with your user
account.
$ mkdir /home//temp
FILES to Download
1. MLO as MLO
2. u-boot as u-boot.bin
3. u-boot for flash as u-boot-f.bin
4. ramdisk image as ramdisk.gz
5. Kernel (uImage) as uImage.bin
6. reset.scr as boot.scr
7. x-loader image as x-load.bin.ift
8. Regular script file as normal.scr

3) Mount the SD card partition. i.e.
$ sudo mkdir /media/card
$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/card

4)Copy the following files in correct order: MLO, u-boot.bin, u-boot-f.bin, ramdisk.gz, uImage.bin, boot.scr, x-load.bin.ift, normal.scr
$ cd /home//temp
$ sudo cp MLO /media/card/
$ sudo cp u-boot.bin /media/card/
$ sudo cp u-boot-f.bin /media/card/
$ sudo cp ramdisk.gz /media/card/
$ sudo cp uImage.bin /media/card/
$ sudo cp boot.scr /media/card/
$ sudo cp x-load.bin.ift /media/card/
$ sudo cp normal.scr /media/card/

5) Un-mount the SD Card
$ cd /media
$ sudo umount /media/card

6) While power is not connected to the beagleboard insert the SD card.

7) Press and hold the USER BUTTON (the one closest to the edge of the board)
and connect the power to the board while still holding the user button.

8) Once the board boots and you see the boot delay you can release the user
button. Continue to let the board boot. The scripts on the SD card
should restore the NAND flash.

9) Once the restore has finished you should be able to power off the
beagleboard, remove the SD card, and power the board back on. You
should see the board boot into u-boot from NAND.

NOTE: I did see some errors when writing the uImage and ramdisk.gz files to the NAND. Inspite of those error messages, beagle board is restored to factory settings.

Additional Resources can be found at:
http://www.elinux.org/BeagleBoardRecovery

nthCode player demo

This video is of nthcode player running on beagle board. The I did uses a keyboard and mouse instead of a TV remote. Nthcode player demo works on only Revision b beagle board. The demo can be booted from an SD card and videos for this demo can be played from a USB flash drive. The file system of the USB flash drive has to be FAT.

In order to make this demo, I had to:
1) download the image from http://www.nthcode.com/player/player.html
2) prepare a bootable SD card. instructions on http://www.sakoman.com/OMAP3/preparing-a-bootable-sd-card.html
3) download all the boot files (MLO, u-boot, uImage-bb) on the "boot" partition of the SD card.
4) untar the "rootfs" in the "rootfs" partition.
5) Change the bootcmd: setenv bootcmd 'mmc init; fatload mmc 0 0x80300000 uImage-bb; bootm 0x80300000'
6) Change the bootargs:
Pico Projector: setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait rootfstype=ext3 omapfb.vram=1:4M,2:4M omapfb.mode=dvi:640x480MR-16@60'
HD monitor: setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait rootfstype=ext3 omapfb.vram=1:4M,2:4M omapfb.mode=dvi:hd720-24@60'
VGA monitor: setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait rootfstype=ext3 omapfb.vram=1:4M,2:4M omapfb.mode=dvi:640x480-16@60'
7) This demo only plays .flv, .avi and .mp4 videos. And only .mp3 audios.
8) The audio codec of the video I was playing was .aac So I had to change it to .mp3 using "super" http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
9) If you need to convert your video/audio files you can use the following steps, if not skip to the next step. Download & Install "super" and follow this steps in order to change video in "super"
- Change the output container format to AVI
- For video select the "Stream Copy" option
- For audio make sure the output audio codec is set to mp3
- Click "Encode (Active Files)" button.
- The resulting AVI file can be copied to a USB flash drive and played on nthplayer
10) In order to play video files, insert the flash drive after the demo is running. In the demo, go to sources and you will find the symbol of the flash drive under loca files. Click on that symbol, which will list the videos on the flash drive. Click on the video you want to play.

XBMC on the BeagleBoard

This video demonstrates the first successful time that XBMC has been able to run on the BeagleBoard. XBMC is short for XBox Media Center. It is a cross-platform freeware media player and is capable of supporting audio, video, playlist, slideshows, and much more. It was formerly used only on the XBox gaming console, but is now available for use with Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. XBMC is also network-capable.

Adobe Flash Lite running on BeagleBoard

This video shows the Angstrom Demo running on the BeagleBoard. The Angstrom demo is running Adobe Flash Lite v3.1 Stand Alone Player. Adobe Flash Lite is a software application intended for mobile devices such as phones and iRiver. It allows said device (in this case the BeagleBoard) to view multimedia content , which previously had only been possible on a personal computer.

Android running on the BeagleBoard

This is a video of the Android demo running on the BeagleBoard. I myself have not used Android, but from this video, I can recommend it to users of all types, as it looks user-friendly and efficient for all sorts of task. Also, in the last 15 to 20 seconds, the camera shows the BeagleBoard setup, so if you are new to the BeagleBoared and are confused on how to get it set up, I think that you will find this last part of the video to be extremely helpful.

OGRE3D Demonstration

This is the OGRE3D engine running on the BeagleBoard. It is using the powerVR SGX core of the omap3 and is projecting the output image using a DLP projector. This video is another excellent representation of the BeagleBoards amazing rendering and graphical capabilities.

Discusion of BeagleBoard Capabilities

This video is pretty much an interview-style discussion about the goals for the BeagleBoard and its many capabilities. Koen and Mans start off by giving a brief overview of what the BeagleBoard is. They then proceed to discuss its potential uses and real-world applications. Lastly, they consider these possibilities and whether or not they have already been attempted and/or are practical enough to be implemented.

BeagleBoard Graphics Video

This video is a very good representation of the graphic potential the BeagleBoard possesses. There is no sound I am afraid, but you can see the excellent graphics and resolution that the BeagleBoard is capable of running.