NComputing L230, L130 user manual L300

L300/L230/L130 User Manual

The Numo™ system-on-chip (SOC) in the L300 device and the vSpace-enabled host PC work closely together to balance video streaming workloads. The vSpace software for the L300 features a unique transcoding engine that can take most any media file format and transcode it for a low bandwidth transfer over the network to the L300 client which then decodes and scales locally. This efficient approach allows NComputing to offer low cost clients that can provide full-screen streaming video, up to display sizes of 1920 x 1080.

The vSpace transcoding process works as follows. A streaming video file (.mp4, .wmv, etc.) is activated from the L300 virtual desktop. The vSpace transcoding engine starts with the video that has been decoded by the host computer and media player (and optimized with Directshow) and then it encodes the data into a compressed video stream. This compressed video data is then sent over NComputing’s UXP protocol to the L300 device. The Numo SOC in the L300 then decodes the data locally and scales it to fit the screen and window resolution set in the user’s desktop. The diagram below illustrates this process:

A key advantage of the vSpace transcoding process is that the original video file’s codec processing takes place on the host. This allows vSpace to work with a wide variety of codecs within the PC that may be updated from time to time. These multiple video formats using multiple codecs are then processed by the vSpace transcoding engine into a single compressed video stream that is decoded in dedicated hardware on the L300. This enables the L300 to deliver an exceptional level of performance at a low cost. The transcoding process for streaming video uses compression that removes data that will generally not be detectable by the end user. However, the standard display graphics for normal 2D applications are extended in a separate lossless process. This ensures the best possible user experience for all types of interaction with the desktop.

Another key advantage of this approach is that full screen scaling on the L300 does not impact the CPU utilization on the host since the Numo SOC’s scalar capabilities handle this function locally.

The L300 virtual desktop accelerates most video formats through standard media players, such as Windows Media Player (which is included in all current Microsoft operating systems) or Media Player Classic (which is included in the vSpace installation).

By default, these media players only playback a limited number of media types with just a few preinstalled codecs (coder/decoder). Most host PCs do NOT come configured for a wide range of support for media types, so additional supported codecs can be added when setting up the host and configuring the NComputing vSpace installation. For an L300 to stream a given file the host must be able to stream it first. The vSpace acceleration method on the host system directs the output of the

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