On Screen Display (OSD) options

[Altera_Forum]

We've got a good video signal going through our system but need a good On Screen Display (OSD) core that will allow the NIOS to overlay windows on-screen. We explored the VIP Frame Buffer module for direct writing, but it is designed more for frame rate conversion than for direct memory access. 

 Are there any pre-made or reference designs solutions for this? Solutions with or without Alpha Blending module are welcome.  It is really hard to believe that no one has explored this with the Altera toolkit before.

[Altera_Forum]

I am doing graphic overlays using the Altera VIP and NIOS processor. However, all of my stuff is homegrown. I wrote a frame reader and an overlay block. I also ported the nanox graphics library over to run on NIOS. 

 I know that Altera is planning to release a frame reader in the VIP suite in an upcoming release specifically for this purpose. Which means they will probably also have some sort of reference design to accompany it. You might hit up your FAE to see if you can get your hands on it early.  You can use the regular Scatter-Gather DMA controller but you'll have to write some custom logic to get it to play with the VIP.  Jake

[Altera_Forum]

Any update on Altera's frame reader? Our efforts in utilizing the Scatter-Gather DMA wound up stalling our project. If Altera releases theirs then we are off to the races again.

[Altera_Forum]

The VIP Frame Reader is now included with Quartus 9.1.

[Altera_Forum]

> The VIP Frame Reader is now included with Quartus 9.1 

The 9.1 example design demonstrates OSD: http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19710  A reference design that demonstrates graphic overlays with alpha blending should be released soon.

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  >A reference design that demonstrates graphic overlays with alpha blending should be released soon.  --- Quote End ---    Has anyone seen this Reference Design, yet?   I need to mix a live graphics image (Streaming into the FPGA) that has a special pixel value in places where VIDEO should show through. I need to see how to use the alpha channel and use this data to enable the underlying video to overlay the graphics on a video stream.  Thanks, in advance.  Mike

[Altera_Forum]

Perhaps this one will be useful? 

http://www.altera.com/support/refdesigns/sys-sol/broadcast/ref-format-conversion-udx3.html

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  Perhaps this one will be useful? http://www.altera.com/support/refdesigns/sys-sol/broadcast/ref-format-conversion-udx3.html  --- Quote End ---    Thanks! However, I have that one and it only uses the Frame Reader type of input; the UDX4 example has the ALPHA stream connected to a stream. (Unfortunately, it is not easily found - The Wiki Link is broken and I have an email into my FAE).  BUT, what I also need is more detail on how to create an ALPHA stream from a graphics stream, so I can overlay it on some video (Symbology and text).  Mike