** Please help advise me if I need to change my roadmap or if you have any answers along the road. I'll also embed specific "QUESTION" keywords in roadmap in places, but welcome answers to unasked questions! Thanks very much. **
My custom DM6467T pcb's are getting made right now, and I've finally reached the point where my boss previously [implied] permission for me to actually try stuff out on the DM6467T EVM (aka Spectrum Digital HD1080P).
I'm on a short timeline as always, and need to figure out how to get from nowhere to product release. I envision the following roadmap, with implied questions that I'll ask in further detail through different forum posts.
=== PRODUCT OVERVIEW ===
My product will boot from NAND with file system also in NAND (free standing and no hard drive). My code of interest will be a custom codec. The end product is a single-purpose appliance running my custom codec, with no configuration or options available in version 1.
=== ROADMAP ===
1) I already have EVM natively booting from NAND, presumably using hard disk file system, and running encode+decode demo that comes with the EVM.
2) Confirm but don't try out ability to totally restore EVM to factory content. This includes CPLD program, hard disk contents, NAND contents, I2C EEPROM contents, and SPI EEPROM contents. (I think this is an all-inclusive list of devices having programmable memory in them. QUESTION: Did I miss one?) Note wiki http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/GSG:_DM6467_DVEVM_Additional_Procedures#Restoring_and_Updating_the_EVM_Hard_Disk_Drive provides instructions for SOME but not ALL devices. I also have a USB Blaster from Altera for the CPLD, and have compiled the Spectrum Digital CPLD source in the past.
BREAKOUT THREAD: http://e2e.ti.com/support/embedded/f/354/p/87307/301713.aspx#301713
3) Get EVM booting from NAND with a small file system also in NAND. QUESTION: Should I "develop" new small file system on hard disk first, then migrate file system to NAND? Or is there no advantage there (but disadvantage of possible need to restore hard drive)?
BREAKOUT THREAD: http://e2e.ti.com/support/embedded/f/354/p/86435/298424.aspx#298424
4) Note I want to answer boot questions first, in case the answer imposes additional environmental constraints. For example, I might lose codec engine or some other support that I have initially with the full EVM in demo mode? If I do lose such support, that may impact my implementation of my custom codec.
5) To date, I've used an existing codec as a placeholder, probably the encode+decode demo codec(s). Next I need to integrate my own codec. In a perfect world, (A) I have source code for my placeholder codec, (B) I compile, install, and confirm operation of my newly compiled version of the codec, (C) I replace the source code guts with my own codec source that I've developed in the past. However, there's a possible issue about source code. Spectrum Digital provides some source code, but I suspect it's only for hardware level testing of some things. It's *not* the source code to the demo suite. QUESTION: What's the best way to navigate this step, or what's the best way to locate the perfect world situation I described?
BREAKOUT THREAD: http://e2e.ti.com/support/embedded/f/356/p/86370/298154.aspx#298154
=== TOOLS ===
I currently have multiple Windows PCs but no Linux in house. QUESTION: After reviewing the roadmap, are there any things I'll be needing to do that really REQUIRE Linux?
BREAKOUT THREAD: http://e2e.ti.com/support/embedded/f/354/p/86371/298157.aspx#298157
For example, the wiki at http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/How_do_I_Integrate_new_codecs_into_DVSDK gives Windows instructions, but the wiki at http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/GSG:_DM6467_DVEVM_Additional_Procedures#Alternate_Boot_Methods gives only Linux instructions (and doesn't give instructions at all for NAND file system).
Thanks VERY much,
Helmut