Technical Features and Benefits

High Performance Multimedia Capabilities

FANCYPANTSTM abstracts the display subsystem. It can take advantage of any on board chips such as DSP, OpenGL, accelerated graphics or dedicated codec chips.

  • FancyPants can run on a minimum 100Mhz CPU, without video playback.
  • It can achieve full screen video, 25FPS, QVGA on ARM9 core at 200Mhz, without hardware acceleration or codecs.

Tiny Installation Size

FancyPants is installed as a base platform and optional modules, with total footprint ranging from 600KB to 2MB.

  • FancyPants-Graphics has an install size of 600 kilobytes .
  • FancyPants-Media has an install size of between 500 kilobytes to 1.5 megabytes , depending on which codecs are supplied by FST. For example, if there is onboard codec support, then the install size can be as little as 500 kilobytes .
  • FancyPants-CanvasServer has an install size of between 40 and 50 kilobytes .

Supported CPUs

FancyPants has been already ported to the following list of CPUs.

  • ARM9 (including OMAP processors)
  • ARM11
  • x86 (386, Pentium, Athlon)
  • PPC
  • MIPS32 (NXP)

There is also special support for some chipsets such as MMX, SSE and NXP TwinView.

Audio & Video Codecs

The FancyPants-Media subsystem is designed around a comprehensive plugin architecture, allowing applications to use FancyPants native codecs and protocols, on board hardware codecs, and codecs and protocols supplied by other parties. FancyPants' native codecs and protocols include:

  • Container formats: FLV (Flash), AVI, MPG, MP4, MOV
  • Video codecs: MPEG1 video, MPEG2 video, MPEG4 (DIVX, XVID)
  • Audio codecs: WAV, MP2 audio, MP3 audio
  • Streaming Protocols & Codecs:
    • HTTP; and
    • Shoutcast

Off-the-shelf widgets, including clock, calendar, frame and more.

Operating Systems & Display Subsystems

FancyPants currently works with the following operating systems and display subsystems:

  • Linux / (X11, FB, DirectFB, Qt/E/Qtopia);
  • Symbian / UIQ;
  • Win32; and
  • L4 (microkernel, alpha stage).
By leveraging FancyPants' portability, if can provide the ideal migration path from your current operating system to Linux.

Additionally, ports for VxWorks, iTron and t-engine are pending on commercial opportunities.

Themes & Skins

Themes

A “ theme ” is a common look between different applications and on-screen elements.

FancyPants supports common Themes between applications and the changing of Themes. In FancyPants, a Theme is not just a collection of images. A Theme can contain:

  • Font families, font sizes, font colors;
  • Screen layout;
  • Borders (size, color, position);
  • Image position, size and tint (rgba);
  • Sounds; and
  • Image data such as wallpaper, icons, etc.

The same set top box application 3 times, with 3 different themes:


Skins

A “ skin ” is a specific look for a single application. For example, a proprietary application may have its own look and feel that does not fit in with the rest of the Theme.

FancyPants supports Skins for individual applications. This works seamlessly together with Themes.

Visual Effects

Real time visual effects applied to on-screen elements including:

This screenshot shows one image folding away to reveal another behind.

  • Faders
  • Animations & Movers
  • Scaling
  • Soft & Hard Shadows
  • Sparkles
  • Followers
  • Linear Transitions
  • Rotation
  • Colour Manipulation
  • 3D Folds
  • Alpha Blending
  • Wet Floor
  • Warhol
  • Alien Map

Development Tools

For software developers, FancyPants supports the GNU toolchain. FancyPants also works with Eclipse IDE. One customer bundles FancyPants with their own SDK, which includes Eclipse.

For graphic designers, industry standard file formats are used by FancyPants. These can be edited by many image and text editing programs.

A media browsing application with multiple fonts and languages.

Fonts and Languages


FancyPants supports TrueType fonts and multiple languages.

LCD Support

Display Size: Display size is not limited (min or max).

Pixel Depth FancyPants supports 4-bit greyscale to 24-bit colour. 12 - 16 bit colour provides a good colour result.