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Bokks Linux Based AV Component
Here is an article about a new linux based AV stereo componenent. This one is from
Bokks and it has a lot going for it: Plays your MP3s, MPEGs, VOBs, and soon Divx. Has standard audio and video ports, a sleek form factor, and what looks to be a sexxy interface. Its ethernet interface can take input from NFS or Samba, or the net. The only downside I see is that it has no DVD drive for built in ripping, and it has only a 20G drive. But at $400, this is pushing the line of reasonable for this type of device.
Should be available in Feb.
Will they be putting out a bigger, optional hard drive? 20 gigs isn't too much when yuo consider the average file size of mp3s and mpegs.
I'm a repairman in an imperfect world.
Hopefully in the future stereos will move away from plain uncompressed stuff and towards things like MP3s. It will be nice to be able to fit a huge bunch of music on a single CD, called "Peter's Favorite Music" in my case, that you can play on good audio hardware, not just old Sound Blaster speakers.
Will a 266 Mhz x86 processor be able to play DivX smoothly? I ask because my 333 Mhz laptop has trouble keeping audio sync...
Take this device and throw a 120gig WD drive in there. Or why not even take the existing HD out and put one of those little ram-disk things in there (you know what I mean, like the kind in the i-opener). Then you can have it be totally silent and just play movies off the file server hiding in the basement with 500gig of space. (What? You don't have one yet? :) Of course that may require a little more hacking because the little info we have says that it will play all those formats from the HD.
Having ethernet on it sure opens lots of neato doors.
The only down side that I can see is that it dosen't support the TiVO like recording functionality. You need to record your stuff somewhere else, then this just plays it. I see that as my only reason not to buy one.
No Ogg Vorbis support though. .ogg's have better compression than mp3's and is OSS. If they get it to work on there, it'd make it even more attractive...
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
I'm certain someone will have posted a similar comment by the time I hit submit but...
BEGIN WHINE:
Can you replace the drive with because...
Multiple choice:
a)My mp3 collection is HUGE, I mean it's SO much bigger than yours you should be turning green with envy.
b)You can only fit hours of on this drive according to my calculations which I will now list in order to invite ridicule on my crap math skills.
c)the clever sales person told me you have to have at least 80GB of memory these days and he wouldn't lie to me he was really clevar.
END WHINE.
That should save everyone else lots of typing.
If they added a VideoLan Client, it would be practically perfect. VLC by itself probably doesn't support the hardware MPEG decoder, and the CPU isn't fast enough to do DVD decoding in software.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
there's a handy little mobo/case called the SV24, made by shuttle. it has:
RCA/S-video out
normal audio out
ethernet
4 usb ports
2 firewire
etc... (standard mobo parts, ps2 ports etc etc)
put together a nice multimedia system for only $490 some, plus it's actually useable as a computer!
i mean, that's a nifty box and all, but you can build a better one for not that much more. it does everything that the unit above does, and much more besides.
If you feel this is a good buy, please say so.
If not, then why post it?
This would be perfect without the hard drive. If the box has network access, why do you need it? It's just an extra component that could fail.
It plays .vob files? Does that include encrypted files? I've searched the company site and it doesn't mention anything about being able to DeCSS .vob files. And I can't imagine having much fun with only unencrypted .vobs.
Wouldn't it be niftier to pack some hard drives into an actual DVD player and stick an ethernet port in the back? You could have all the features of this box plus the ability to rip straight from DVD. Course the MPAA wouldn't let it see the light of day.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
There is also less need to keep all your 1.5-3 hour movies in one device that can play them all without switching media as there is for your 2-15 minute songs; I see DIVX more as the result of the fact that most computers don't have DVD burners.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
A: They thought it would be a nice middle ground between nothing and more.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
So that's about 288 USD parts, if we accept your quoted prices as being market. But you're ignoring ethernet and probably a few other things (e.g., wireless remote). Plus labor to assemble it and install software. Plus support. Plus software development for their UI. Plus profit (god forbid anyone take a little risk and expect that). Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Alright I'm taking bets on how long till a hack harddisk upgrade is availible:
1 hr after release
1 day after release
2 days after release
It is unreasonable if you're willing to spend the time to put something like this together--but that's how it goes for pretty much everything these days. If you do it yourself, then you're going to save cash.
The point is that not everybody has the tools (remember, Joe Average is the target audience and he's not going to know how to assemble said box or even come close to getting all the required software running--even with Ye Olde Simple MS Product) nor the time (Joe Average again--even if he had the tools to get this job done, I'd sure he'd rather spend it at his kids' T-ball game) to assemble this thing.
True--it doesn't make sense for your the "technical elite," but that's not who it's marketed to. This is a product just like a Dell computer or an internet appliance--it's got some cool technology bits but it's sold as a package so that Mr. and Mrs. Average don't have to get their hands dirty with the details. I'm sure there are a fair number of geeks that will be interested in this product based solely on its technical merits, but the intended audience is not someone who could do this on their own--that person has already done it, and for half the price.
I think developments on the xbox or ps2 will take place that will allow for this sort of functionality, (it almost happend on the dreamcast the proccessor just was not fast enugh to handle divx rips) and because both companies tend to take a loss on each consle, and will soon or already have ethernet built in, it will make for a good convergence device, once it gets hacked and opend up. could watch divx movies with better quality video out, for some reason divx movies look identical to the DVD on the monitor but not so identical to the DVD when played on TV out compared to DVD played on DVD player.
yea, they won't hape the MPAA all over their ass if they implement this little feature.
is this not news for NERDS?
Every good nerd has his wholesale friend, and the motherboard had onboard audio/lan.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
I want one that plays .mod tracker files, remember those? couldn't believe they could fit a whole song, crappy as it sounded through the PC speaker, in around 100K
But the marketing/advertising they are receiving, at least from that review, aims directly towards illegal uses. Take the following examples:
This implies you will TRADE the movies, not just watch them for your own personal fair use. Here it suggests hooking up external equipment to your companies LAN and use their bandwidth for your own (likely) illegal use. Not good either.If this product hopes to succeed, it must be presented in fair use. The Rio almost got nailed by the RIAA, but the Rio presented itself as legal fair use, and set a good precedent. This could set a NEGATIVE precedent if done incorrectly. They need to improve their image quick.
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
James Brents
Umm, you forgot something: there is a special chip that DECODES MPEG-1 & MPEG-2 streams. Want to try MPEG-2 playback on Pentium 266? be my guest
nah, no sig... move on..
That would have been good, and easy to implement. There are a lot of formats that are much better than mod now.
.XM and .IT were the most advanced. XM has 32 channels I think. IT has 64 tracker channels (?) with 256 internal channels, overlapping sounds in a single channel, panning envelopes, pitch envelopes, filter envelopes etc...
The last time I paid attention to the formats,
The only problem is that players often have some bug that messes up your favorite track.
ATI AIW TV edition, 100$
... priceless. There are things money can't buy, for everything else there's an innovative hacker.
motherboard, 100$
lots of ram, 50$
40gig harddrive, 150$
duron 850 processor, 80$
Not paying heating bills because your collection of computers keep your home toasty warm
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
What software and codecs are being used for playback? Are they something that's already public domain or are they being developed specifically for this box? Much media playback software for Linux currently is "OKay", but with frequent crashes, poor features, and artifacts, it's got a long way to go. If this is going to be a consumer product, I imagine the software will be a little more polished, or at the very least, provide decent functionality in the form of front-ends that users of other platforms have expected. Is this software to be available to us or will it have to be hacked mercilessly out of the box and liberated from a restrictive license?
Why bother.
I see that many people here are complaining about the capabilities and price of the box. For me it is just the kind of STB I was looking for.
:-)
Sure, you can build a PC with MPEG2 playback, networking etc. cheaper or for about the same price. But thats not what this device tries to replace, at least I would not buy it for doing this. When I saw the older TV Bokks (you can see it on their web page) I thought this would be great as an STB to stream files and live DVB streams from a server in the basement to other TVs here at home. But, although we have one of those at work to play with, I never saw it being offered for sale anywhere.
The old Bokks has a Geode chip as processor/graphics chip/etc. and a Sigma Designs EM8400 for decoding. I guess the new Bokks is based on the same design. They only added some hardware (like the hard drive) and changed the shape to a brick. The EM8400 is a nice decoder chip. We developed our own driver which is API compatible to our DVB drivers. So, I would not mind playing with one of those Bokkses. Also, if you consider the price of an EM8400 card (e.g. the Netstream 2000), the Bokks does not seem that expensive anymore.
Sure, I would also not mind if the Bokks were a little cheaper. With VAT (AFAIK 25% in Sweden which I guess I will have to pay when ordering from Germany) its over 1100 German Marks + shipping. Maybe they decide to also sell the old version for a lower price. I at least would be interested in it. On the other hand, the disk and nice brick shape makes the new system really portable. And I think the specs mention only 10W power usage. No noise, little heat, sounds good.
Now please everybody buy it so that the price goes down and I can get one
Imagine this.....
1) 1.2 Ghz athlon with 512 megs of memory
2) ATI all in wonder radeon that provides not only a TV tuner but svideo/composite A/V inputs and outputs and the ability to do audio/video capture at 720x384 at 30 fps on any of the inputs
3) Sound blaster Live platinum 5.1 for surround sound playback of DVD's etc.
4) four 100 gig hard drives on an IDE raid controller. Total capacity of 400 gigs
5) DVD-R burner, preferably SCSI
6) CD burner, preferably SCSI
7) It will be connected to the internet via a switched 100base-T network connected to a NAT gateway that is itself connected through DSL.
This is the system I'm building right now. Its purpose is much the same as the Bokks device. With it I will be able to play DVD's, vobs, mp3, avi's, mpegs, vcd, divx, etc all on my TV thanks to the all in wonder. Additionally I'll be able to do tivo style recording thanks to that all in wonder. I can rip all my DVD's, encode them to divx, and store them on the raid array or burn them to CD. Or I can just rip them and burn them back to DVD in regionless format with no macrovision. I've got friends overseas that might appreciate that.
By the time this Bokks device becomes available I'll have this system up and running. I haven't decided whether to use Linux or Windows2000 yet. Which one I use will greatly depend upon device support for the all in wonder and SB Live. We've got an HK A/V reciever with dolby surround sound support. If the SB Live drivers for linux support all the features, and the support for the All in wonder is there, then I'd rather use Linux. But if this is not the case I'll use windows instead.
Unfortunately this system is going to cost me a fair bit more than $400. I've already got the MB, CPU, and memory. All I'll need is a good case/PS, the hard drives, the video card, the sound card, and of course the SCSI adapter and burners. Total cost will be upwards of $2000 dollars US.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Hey what do you know! 48 hrs ago I submitted this exact story (hey, same link too!) to slashdot and guess what kids! It got rejected.
theres slashdot for ya.
Well I am not a nerd, nor do I reguard it as something to be proud of. That said, whether it has built in LAN or not is practically irrelevant. If you're an employed nerd, you might realize that your time is actually worth something. If I have to spend a couple hours putting this thing together to match its quality, then I've lost a significant amount of money.
Your time clearly is worth nothing. Troll for the Troll.
This is the first reasonable digital audio/tv device I have seen. The ones before have been tied to proprietary formats
So is this one. It supports MPEG audio layer 3 (patented), VOB (MPEG 2 (patented) plus Dolby Digital (patented)), and DivX (MPEG 4 (patented)). And the royalties for such patents are
ridiculously expensive
Will I retire or break 10K?
Since it runs linux you could allways mount a few harddrives on other systems.
A few notes:
It has an 266mhz x86 processor (perhaps a pII?), this doesn't really sound like a processor that's fast enough for decoding divx, does it?
But fast enough to do some decent retro mame gaming.
I wonder what kind of 20gb drive is in this device. They better put in a quiet one, since people will leech their stuff 24/7 with this thing. Currently my cable decoder even has a 4gb harddrive the noise makes me crazy enough to disconnect it when I don't use it.
Can you get a drive to read 8 track music today?
Yes! Start here.
Or how about a tape recorder/player which works with spools of soft iron wire (used in the 1940s).
Museums such as the Smithsonian Institution maintain equipment that can still read old formats.
The only data sure to last thru time is that which can be read by humans directly: Text
And what happens in 802701, when nobody knows the English language anymore?
and Photos on film/paper.
Film rots; paper rots unless it's acid-free. What are the oldest pieces of visual art that survive? Cave paintings.
Will I retire or break 10K?
[Xbox and PS2] will make for a good convergence device, once it gets hacked and opend up.
Hacked? Yeah right. Xbox is locked up tight; apparently, all binaries must bear Microsoft's digital signature. Watch for Microsoft to use its vast re$ources to sue any modchip makers into oblivion.
for some reason divx movies look identical to the DVD on the monitor but not so identical to the DVD when played on TV out compared to DVD played on DVD player.
This may be a gamma issue. Try tweaking your TV-out device's settings.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Lots of people just say build a PC, but what software on the PC lets you run the thing with a remote control and has a built-in set of menus for timer-recording and other features without fscking around with a keyboard (even a wireless one is too much if *manditory*).
PCs seem to be able to all the multimedia stuff independantly but they lack a common, simple IR-compatible way of tying it all together.
If you can make all the bits work together, that's got be worth something.
It's beyond me as well since it, very reasonably, was in fact not modded up.
btw, for some reason, pointing out what I say about myself just doesn't seem like a useful contribution.
but then, neither was this.
sic transit gloria mundi
The only downside I see is that it has no DVD drive for built in ripping
:P
:)
It's not to surprising, considering that they wanted to sell the device, rather then just getting lawyered the fuck out of
Once they're successful they might be able to do things like throw in a DVD burner a-la recent Macs, but don't except a home DeCSS machine on store shelves anytime soon
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
You are making the wrong assumptions.
The data will not be staying on the old digital data storage mediums, it will be moved to the latest digital storage medium. That's why digital is so great. It's easy to copy and manipulate.
At the rate data storage has improved, each time I upgrade to a new larger system I have copied ALL of my legacy data into a (now) small portion of my new system. My data moves to the latest data storage medium. All of my old Apple II programs which used to be on 300 floppies are now using 42 Megabytes in a directory on my hard drive. My Apple II emulator runs much faster than the old Apple II. I expect this to continue at least until I am very old.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Not a good deal unless you're going to mount it on the wall!
Case: $75 (needs a power supply. ~$47 shipped)
After all, one of the nicer things will be that this product is smaller and quieter than your normal PC. And you don't have to mess around with different drivers and such to make sure that it works to your satisfaction. They've (presumably) already gone to the trouble.
However, it is odd that they didn't go with a PPC of some sort, given that they're not limited by the kernel (maybe other A/V software doesn't run well on the PPCs? Nah.(?)).
Oh well, the dancing penguin is nice.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
admited
I forgot about power supplybut I assume you'll make one anyways (30$, plus a 5$ book)
cables come with motherboard/ati card
motherboard as onboard video/sound/networking/amr (A7SVM
SiS 730s, 4pci AGP, ATA100, onboard audio + video + lan, MATX $119.00)
etc, etc..
Beowulf = price*(N) where N is the amount you wish.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
it was a duron 800.
and the ATI tv card has built in mpg decoding
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Those images were not taken on film! Please read the site. Film begins getting discolored after a decade or so and must be stored in a room with excellent climate control to prevent degradation; Universal stores all it's negatives in a stone vault carved into Mount Weather, and they still need massive restoration when brought out.
The others who replied already dealt with your other points.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
http://www.shuttleonline.com/sv24.htm
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Thanks -- I didn't know 'bout that; I'll give it a shot.
Those who are electrical engineers correct me if I'm wrong, but this device appears to be centric to Europe in its video output. Its listed as having SCART, S-Video, and Composite (PAL) output. From what I know, the Composite signal isn't the only thing that is PAL/NTSC specific - S-Video is as well! If that is in fact the case, I don't believe any North American television will be of much use with this device. Too bad, in my opinion.
Without composite audio out, I guarantee you that the noise level of the outputs makes them totally worthless for even the less picky audio enthusiasts like myself. If I pause the machine and get a buzz through my otherwise totally clean Sherwood and MC500 pair, then the box isn't worth a ten dollar gift certificate.
Come on, for the love of christ somebody had to have a decent stereo on the team that developed this! Nobody in their right mind uses analog anymore for anything other than vinyl or magnetic tape, it is impossible to clean the signal even over the three feet between components. And when your signal is already digital (as it is before the cheap DAC on the sound card gets ahold of it and messes it up), why the hell not supply it as digital, so that $300 DAC in the sherwood isn't just twiddling it's thumbs. Coaxial outputs are basically free, and even optical out is hardly prohibitive anymore.
Keep it digital, folks, analog is the useless buzzing child of the past.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I can't belive this is rated as troll.
Next thing you know when somebody yells at dell for over pricing a PC for nerds, they'll will be called a troll.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
According to the forum on www.bokks.net, Ogg support is being developed for the box.
Quote from the news update on bokks.net: "As a special tribute to all the attendants of DreamHack 2001, Blokks will demonstrate compability with C64, PC & Amiga audio & tracker formats *.sid ,*.it, *.mod, *mtm, *.s3m, *.stm, *.ult, *uni, *.xm"
I'm currently building a very similar device, but with a high end audio card with a > 100db signal to noise ratio and digital out. I just bought an ATI AIW card to use to drive the display through the TV. The bad news is: there is no Linux support for TV-out. You need the Windoze software to configure the TV display. I've seen some discussion about using the frame buffer interface for the ATI to set the right mode for TV out. But just talk, no bits. Apparently nVidia has a card that has TV-out support under Linux. I'm heading to Fry's this afternoon to pick one up. Blekko