Why do streamers have processors in them?

[shaun88]

I've been looking into buying an android streamer so I can plus a usb into it and view the files on TV, I've came across two streamers, one was dual core and the other a quad core, why do they have processors, I don't understand this

 

[shaun88]

Plug a usb into it**

 

[Eximo]

I'm not really sure where to begin here. This would be explaining what CPU cores are for and why they are found in almost every electrical device.

Average household in the UK or US has dozens of processors throughout the home.

Streaming video requires everything that a computer does. They will also have onboard GPUs for video decoding on the HDCP protocol, usually.

 

[Eximo]

Incoming video data will be in some format such as H.264. This raw data has to be loaded into memory, something only the processor can know to do based on programming. Once the data is in memory it has to be decoded into the data for each pixel in the display along with the embedded audio and all that stuff.

To further complicate things, your television also has an Arm CPU and GPU in all likelihood if it is an LCD HD TV with an HDMI input. So it will also process the incoming video signal which will again be encoded for HDCP transmission via the HDMI interface. It's programming will be more visual centric and deal with the backlight, local dimming, tru-motion and all the other features you hear about with LCD TVs.

Pretty rough overview, but there is plenty of reading out there if you want to know more about video processing.

 

[USAFRet]

I've been looking into buying an android streamer so I can plus a usb into it and view the files on TV, I've came across two streamers, one was dual core and the other a quad core, why do they have processors, I don't understand this

Everything has a 'processor' in it. Monitors, TV, stereo, oven, my alarm clock, your car has a couple dozen...