Sharp spills guts on video iPod's innards?
By Ryan Block 
posted Jul 27th 2005 3:50PM
posted Jul 27th 2005 3:50PM
As per the usual when it comes to these kinds of things, we have no idea whether this information is true (let alone
verifiable), but apparently some Sharp sales reps have been bragging about a pretty big customer win for their LH7A400
SOC (system on a chip): Apple's video iPod.
Yeah, we know it's a rumor about the parts to a device only rumored to be in development, but if you're interested it's
supposedly got a 200MHz ARM, support for MMC, CF, IrDA, USB 2.0, and so on—but even if it was true, who knows which of
these capabilities would wind up in the unit. Most curious, however, is their reason for switching to Sharp instead of
sticking to their current two chipset designers,
SigmaTel and
PortalPlayer.
[Thanks, Tomur]
i know that picture is a mock-up, but whyd they use the 3g model? its my favorite one by far, but i thought apple would use the 4g.
god i hope its the 3g look...
so if apple is using sharp, does this mean sigmatel has other plans in mind after their rio purchase?
fishes,
narco.
i agree, i liked the 3g model design better as well.
have you guys used the 3g model? the buttons on the 3rd gen were incredibly bad (no tacticle feedback, since the ipod doesn't always respond immediately u'd end up hitting play twice which would pause it, etc.). the 4th gen is my favorite, back to the original ipod style...
if you weren't incredibly stupid, you could use the touch buttons. plus, there was something elegant about just brushing the buttons to controlt the device. sure you had to use the hold switch, but that ain't bad.
my 0.02
1st gen was a plexi-glass nightmare. 3g was nice and slender. shapely design. i like it better than my fiances 4g, but maybe because it is mine. we will see when we get married which i like better.
btw - ont- video would be cool, but if it aint got cf and rapid transfer speeds, i could care less. i would buy an apple pda or ipod or whatever in a minute if i could put my nefs and jpgs on it with out extra, slow attatchements.
not very likely that it's the lh7a400. the sharp sales rep who claims that must think we're living 5 years ago. the sharp datasheet states that it only does usb 1.1 (boo, hiss!).
on the other hand, they have a newer and larger lh7a404 which has usb 2.0 host and device functionality at full speed (more up to par with what is to be expected from apple).
as for the lcd controller built in, it seems to support a high resolution (1024x768), but only a 16-bit color depth. is it me or do those screens just pale in comparison to the vibrant 18-bit color screens i've been seeing lately on all those motorola phones?
here are the processor (lh7a404) specs:
http://document.sharpsma.com/files/tec_datasheet_lh7a404.pdf
i agree i love the touch buttons on my 3g. something real cool about those. i can see why people like the 4g better, just liked the wheel being seperate i guess.
.
i don't like the buttons on my 3g. i prefer the tactile feedback of the 4g models.
also, i don't see video as being a killer app on a device like this. how often do you want to look at the same movie or video, with the possible exception of p0rn? then again, maybe p0rn is the intended killer app.
.
.
i went from the 4g to the 60 gig color.. and parachute is way better! the wheel feels just a little more textured, and responds better. i hated playing those games with the 3g, but never owned one before.
i also like being able to control the volume while it's in a pocket, with out accidently changing the song!
it's funny, i remember the first rumors about the ipod, before the ipod was announced. all the "spy pics" and predictions seemed to have the "200mhz arm, support for mmc, cf, irda, usb 2.0, and so on" in the list.
#6 - you're an idiot. usb 2.0 full-speed is just the maximum trandfer rate for usb 1.1
usb 2.0 hi-speed is the fast 480mbps.
this chip is old news and isn't worth apple's money. sigma designs em8620l is the chip for the job. i'd be severely disappointed if that sharp chip were actually used.
i'm sure when we get video ipods we're all going to be using them to view cute little movies of our cats dressed up as frogs. right??
your 2 cents sucks xibala. it has nothing to do with "being able to use" the buttons. apple knew they screwed up with the 3g, that's why they went back to the original style. you always have to lock the 3g or just holding the device will change songs, etc... this design was flawed period. i still have the 3g and i'm waiting for the battery to crap out like (every ipod does) my 1st gen did... then i'll go sony all the way.
i seriously doubt that apple will make a v-pod that closely resembles current ipods. the screen isn't large enough. everything i have heard is that they want to do better than the psp. i use the psp for video and i love it. the picture is good, sound is good, screen size is good, memory sucks. i watch video on el in chicago - flying - train on my psp, good way to kill time and much easier to transport than a laptop. i will be buying the video ipod when it comes out as long as it has a screen that at least matches the psp - and please - gigs of harddrive space.
i agree with dan.
why would they make a pmp with a screen that small. i mean it's apple, they have to come out with something usable. a little 2x2 inch screen isn't going to cut it for watching video. not to mention the fact that the click wheel is bigger than the screen!
A 200mhz ARM is not fast enough to do video effectively, not without a lot of extra specialized hardware helping out.
Current VGA XScale PDAs at 624mhz are barely able to play fullres DIVX DVD rips and that is with the new Intel graphics coprocessor.
PDAs are presumably for business, but they do now routinely sport VGA screens.
But PMPs out there are usually only 320x240 and don't have the most powerful CPUs in them, and require you to transcode your videos to MP4 simple-profile. Arms and XScales don't have floating point units which is a limiting factor. It's hard to compare them clock to clock with something like a Pentium II.
Current PMPs are really like MD players right now with the whole transcoding situation. Nobody wants to have to do that outside of saving space, but if it has a HD in it (unlike a PSP) then space isn't really the problem. You're going to want to play the same files in the same format as your host PC just as you can with MP3s.
If you already have a collection of DVD rips in CD-sized DIVX or SVCD files like most people do, then what this thing should do is be able to play those back natively without additional transcoding just like any budget laptop from a few years back could do.
I think any iPOD video should reach that level, otherwise it's not going to be any better than the competition. I don't see them doing that because the chip in the iPods is very slow. To do this requires high-end PDA clockspeeds and support chips and there is no way Apple can get that without reaching Archos-like laptop pricepoints.
There are some portable DVD players out now that can play back DIVX files. I don't know what's inside the guts of those. But that's what it would take, some commodity MPEG2/4 decoding hardware that is low cost and low power.
so why is it that the PSP can do beautiful video at 222Mhz?
Because it isn't playing full resolution video, only 480x272, of course. That is about half 640x480 resolution (176640 fewer pixels).
because the PSP has two processors and a GPU to help.
I don't like the buttons on my 3G. But the scoll wheel scoll so much better than the 4G!
yo, irda doesnt dound like much of a feature... use the real estate for something useful
-irda hater
This chip is not capable to support video decoding.
But it can be used with a (TI) DSP (as slave)
The treo 600 has a 144mhz processor and it can rock videos very well. It's dumb that you guys are not seeing the big picture. Apple is doing the video Ipod for one reason: their bottom line. I'm very satisfied right now with my 30GB ipod, and so are most people with theirs. Apple needs video to intice people to upgrade. Not only that, they have ITMS to sell content over. The marriage of content and hardware that Apple owns so perfectly Will make their introduction into the video distribution world the most successful.
What I'm trying to get to is that Apple is far less concerned in getting your Divx files to play than it is with selling you custom (music at first) videos that play perfectly well on the 200Mhz processor.
Besides, the news is still good. You'll still be able to make your own content for it. And there probably will be an ipodderVideo that will automatically convert videos from your collection and sync them to your Ipod. Hell, they'll probably include bittorrent support so that you can download your movies, converts and syncs to the ipod automatically.
I see good things coming, and I can't wait.
We have an alternate design idea for the product... we agree that the screen as shown is far too small.
http://mistersnitch.blogspot.com/2005/07/podcasts-small-videos-big-profits.html