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Playing with Sony's Linux-Based Networked Media Player
ZorinLynx writes "A while back, Sony released the NSP-1, a 'Network Storage Player.' It is intended to be a source of video for signage, such as plasma displays in banks, airports, and so on. I got a chance to play with one today. It's Red Hat Linux-based, which seems unusual for Sony! Though pricey at $1995, it's an interesting use of Linux, and could probably be hacked into a nice set-top video jukebox. It has a nice small form factor, as well as ethernet, USB, and video output in various formats, and a PCMCIA slot for removable media."
It has a nice small form factor, as well as ethernet, USB, and video output in various formats, and a PCMCIA slot for removable media." Sounds like it would be an excellent, albeit pricy makeshift firewall!
For cryin' out loud! Mod an Xbox, people!
Heh. I actually wish I had gotten more time to play with it, but it had to go back where it came from as soon as I "fixed" it.
I was just surprised to find out this thing even existed, and that Sony was using Linux in one of its products. Sony has always come off to me as a company that does everything their own proprietary way, and gives the finger to most open standards. (Memory stick, anyone?)
-Z
FYI, the t10000 (Playstation 2 Development Tool) runs a version of redhat. Something ancient like RH4.2 if I'm not mistaken. You don't ssh into it or anything though, but it's web admin allows you to upload rpms to upgrade various subsystems on it.
Sony has used Red Hat Linux before. I work in the broadcast industry and I find it interesting that they use linux in a lot of their products. (both Red Hat and Debian) The thing that surprises me though is the price...
I bought a Sony 34" widescreen CRT TV. In the documentation was a copy of the GPL. Seems the menu runs Linux. They list the kernel, busybox and about 6 libs. I submitted it as a story but was rejected.
I thought it was interesting as it takes awhile for it to display anything when you first turn it on. I thought the CRT needed to warm up. Maybe it is just Linux booting.
I could definitely see some uses for streaming video off a linux device, in particular http://www.dejenerate.net/ruxpin/pub/BLACKPPL.avi
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
>I prefer to set password for setup, which prevents intruders to change booting options.
That does raise the bar, but every motherboard I've looked at had some way to bypass the BIOS password, and in extreme cases someone with unsupervised physical access could pull out the hard disk and copy it. Not to mention that an attacker could read and write arbitrary memory if the machine has a Firewire port (http://pacsec.jp/advisories.html).
Just when I was about to ask how Sony could charge nearly 2 grand for a device that uses an open-source OS, you had to go and pre-emptively answer my question. That's some hard-core video processing going on, tho I don't suppose it's all hardware... Mayhaps Sony has written a (closed) app for the video/audio mixing?
Who's your user, program?
If they're using Red Hat Linux, anyone have any idea what player they're using? I doubt they wrote their own from scratch for this thing, and because Sony isn't a Linux house, I'd guess that they are licensing 3rd party or using open source. (I'd love it if it used ffmpeg so I could get my hands on that cool video scheduling interface, and in any case, I'd like to know what Sony chose for their "high bit rate" mpeg2.)
Can someone with access to one of these things take a look at the video libraries and tell us where they come from?
On the same note, I recently purchased a Pioneer Plasma TV and found notices for the linux kernel and openssl. Apparently the media box that comes with the display runs on Linux and uses openssl.
Delta Song Airline has an onboard satellite TV in each seat back, and they all run linux. Yay!
How do I know? Well, one time I was flying Song, and the system hung up, and the stewardess rebooted it, and the linux boot screen came up on all the seatback displays, complete with the Tux logo. It's sooo coool!! I'm soo coool!!