Best value for money FPGA board with Xilinx Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC

[pascal_sweden]

Is the Zedboard from Avnet still the best value for money FPGA board for the Zynq-7000 series?

Here are some links that I found. If you know about other affordable FPGA boards with Zynq-7000 and reasonable amount of interfaces, you can add it in this thread as well.

http://www.fpgadeveloper.com/2014/03/comparison-of-zynq-boards.html

http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/10/07/snickerdoodle-xilinx-zynq-arm-fpga-board-starts-at-55-crowdfunding/

http://www.trenz-electronic.de/products/fpga-boards.html

http://www.myirtech.com/list.asp?id=529

http://solutions.inrevium.com/products/base/zynq/

https://joelw.id.au/FPGA/CheapFPGADevelopmentBoards

[Howardlong]

There is also the Zybo, about 1/3 the price of the Zedboard. I have one due for delivery on Monday, but I fear the learning curve on these Zynq devices is going to be steep.

[pascal_sweden]

Regarding the HDMI interface on these FPGA boards with Zynq 7000 SoC.

Is it correct that most boards only support video on the HDMI interface and no audio?

[hamster_nz]

Regarding the HDMI interface on these FPGA boards with Zynq 7000 SoC.

Is it correct that most boards only support video on the HDMI interface and no audio?

If the HDMI is connected to the FPGA directly (e.g. Zybo), supporting audio isn't a function of the board, but a function of the HDMI IP block in the FPGA.

If the HDMI is connected to an HDMI Transmitter IC (e.g. Zedboard), it will depend on if the IC's audio interface (usually I2S) is connected to the FPGA. These can be a pain to use.

PS The Zedboard is connected such that only 422 YCC pixels can be transferred, which is also a bit of a pain...

[pascal_sweden]

So if I understand correctly, the Zybo FPGA board provides more flexibility?
It would be great if it supports both 1080P and audio as well.

Is the HDMI block supported in Xilinx SDSoC?

Some FPGA boards, have both HDMI input and HDMI output.
Can you use this to implement your own Genlock overlay function?
Would that be very hard to do? Has it already been done, and published as open source?

It would be great if this genlock overlay also works on HDCP encrypted HDMI video streams.
Logitech used to have a consumer product that does this. I guess they signed HDCP license, and implemented this as a closed product to avoid security breach on the HDCP side.

BTW: Are there FPGA boards available already that support HDMI version 2.0, for 4K video?
I guess the low-end FPGA boards only have HDMI version 1.4.

[hamster_nz]

Some FPGA boards, have both HDMI input and HDMI output.
Can you use this to implement your own Genlock overlay function?

Yes.

Would that be very hard to do? Has it already been done, and published as open source?

It is a little bit hard - I still haven't got it perfect. It has already been done, and my version can be found here: https://github.com/hamsternz/Artix-7-HDMI-processing - here is a video of some overlaid audio meters:

It would be great if this genlock overlay also works on HDCP encrypted HDMI video streams.
Logitech used to have a consumer product that does this. I guess they signed HDCP license, and implemented this as a closed product to avoid security breach on the HDCP side.

An easier way is to look for an HDMI splitter, that strips HDCP from the stream. Far fewer legal issues too!

BTW: Are there FPGA boards available already that support HDMI version 2.0, for 4K video?
I guess the low-end FPGA boards only have HDMI version 1.4.

Yes, but HDMI 2.0 is under a very tight NDA, and requires the use of three high speed transceivers per channel or a TX chip with very fast/wide interfaces, which pushes up the cost of the board.

A better option is DisplayPort 1.1. I've got a basic 4k DisplayPort 1.1 source up and displaying 4k (design is at https://github.com/hamsternz/FPGA_DisplayPort ), but implementing DisplayPort without using a closed-source IP block makes implementing HDMI look like a walk in the park.

[pascal_sweden]

Is there more info available about the IP block for the HDMI interface on the Zybo board?
Is it a freeware IP block, or is it an evaluation version of a commercial IP block?

Does it support video AND audio?

Note that the Z-turn board from MYIR uses an evaluation version of a commercial IP block:

We are using evaluation version of Xylon's logiCVC-ML and logiCLK IP core.
Please contact Xylon to buy the license of the IP core for logiCVC-ML or logiCLK.
http://www.logicbricks.com/Products/logiCVC-ML.aspx
http://www.logicbricks.com/Products/logiCLK.aspx

That's why I want to check about the IP block for HDMI on the Zybo board.

[NiHaoMike]

Didn't Bunnie find a way to MITM overlay into a HDCP stream without decrypting it?

[Royce]

Didn't Bunnie find a way to MITM overlay into a HDCP stream without decrypting it?

As I recall the encryption is per pixel. So what he did was use the master key encrypt new pixel values and overwrite the parts of the stream.

[pascal_sweden]

I think it's a pity that the project from Bunny was implemented on a custom NeTV FPGA board.

Why didn't they use a more common FPGA board with input and output HDMI interface. such as e.g. the ZedBoard?

[slburris]

How about the Parallela board, $99 https://www.parallella.org

And they are having a sale until Dec 26th.

Scott

[stmdude]

This one looks promising, albeit a bit lacking on the IO front:
https://hackaday.io/project/6633-arduino-compatible-zynq-shield

It's not quite done yet though, so..