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Neuros Solicits Help From AppleTV Hackers
JoeBorn writes "Highlighting the fact that Neuros officially encourages contributions to its open source device (GPL), it has published an open letter soliciting the help of AppleTV hackers. 'The transition to IPTV creates a golden opportunity to ensure that the gateway to the TV set becomes open to all.' Neuros draws a connection between open source and free media, and attempts to articulate why an open box can extend the freedom of the internet to the TV set."
I've been debating for a while now whether i want to get an XBox 1 to stream videos etc off the lan at home. At it stands, neither cd changers, dvd changers or "media pcs" have really made me happier or content easier to access. We have far too many controls at home, far too many user interfaces, and stupidly crippled hardware (we've got a sony dvd/harddisc-based recorder that doesn't interface with any kind of tv catalogue - useless!)...
.isos, decompress rars and zip files. Amazing stuff. No software players I've seen yet can do this.
I've seen a modded xbox happily navigate windows' shares, ftps, even RSS feeds, and even download videos from the net on the fly. I've seen them transparently mount
Here's the crux tho: the Neuros OSD is ~ $200... I can get an xbox for £50 (~notalot) with games and a controller, then softmod it to my specs in a few hours. I know what the xbox does, ive seen it do it.
If the neuros had a 1gig ethernet port (im not sure it does?), i'd almost certainly invest simply to use it as a NAS (there's a mod for this on the OSD website) as I have 3 x 300Gb USB2 hdds lying around needing a gige link to justify disconnecting them from the PC.
I've seen other gige NASes around too, but they cost far too much. The xbox 1, of course, doesnt sport gige (does it?!). I suppose I could hard mod the xbox usb and plug in a usb gige adaptor, but does the xbox support usb2??
Nonetheless,
I personally think its fantastic seeing a product that wants to utilise OSS this way! I've long wondered why the proprietary vendors try to cut out modding if they're pricing their product to make money through sales (think wifi boxen etc - not xboxes, their business model needs you to buy games). Its weird when their product lines and life expectations usually fall far short of incorporating any "user inspired" features. I've yet to see "successive" versions of products actually take features from the unsupported mod market and sell in a new product. Clearly they're just trying to thawt innovation at home, because there's a very thin line between breading up a small SoC and selling it!
Matt
The AppleTV -is- a PC, it's got a 1.0GHz Pentium M-based based x86 processor, a GeForce Go 7300 GPU, a 40GB HDD, 256MB of RAM, USB, 100B-T Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n WiFi, with HDMI and component outputs...
Why should anyone interested in developing open solutions for set top boxes limit themselves to the OSD's closed embedded-style hardware, when Apple has provided a full PC that you can run whatever you want on (Mac OSX, linux, MythTV, etc...) in a nice neat package for almost the same price ($229 vs $299)? Especially when the AppleTV is sufficiently powerful to do HDTV divx/xvid decoding in software, whereas the Neuros OSD needs to use it's closed DSP core to handle even SDTV.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
It adds one significant feature: it can record.
Otherwise, there's nothing else on the market that is as good as Xbox Media Center.
Personally, I've bought a spare Xbox (on the £50 deal you're talking about) as a backup for my current XBMC box.
Neuros also doesn't have/support..
AVC because of it's underpowered CPU/GPU
HDTV output, hell the thing can't even do s-video out
Storage of media locally
Interaction with iTunes
and so much more
Apple TV hackers focus is legally running Cocoa applications on a $300 device. If you just want a Linux set top box, your best choice is probably a slightly used notebook. You get to customize hard drive space, gaming capabilities and so on according to your needs. Neuros attitude is golden, but does their hardware bring any additional value into the picture?
Quick, someone hack HDMI into it.
Where the hell of you been? It's 2010, and everyone owns a Mac and prays daily to the Great Steve.
Now take your iSoma and chant your iMantras.
According to their Wiki http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/Neuros_ OSD The Neuros product doesn't support ATSC or any of the High Definition formats.
I would be extremely interested in a set top box that can play files directly from my network drive in any format that WinDVD is capable of playing, and output video in 1080i, 720p, 480i, and other popular TV line rates. I don't want to have to download the file to the STB's local drive or have to run special video streaming software. I just want to mount the network drive to the STB and point to the file to play. Fancy menus and play lists are optional.
Hardware outputs should include the latest version of HDMI, DVI-D/I, VGA, Component and Y/C (S-Video). I want it to work with any monitor or TV that I have laying around. Optionally, an ATSC tuner can be added for digital recording / PVR capability. And of course, there should be no trace of DRM.
Apple-TV isn't there. The hacks are a start, but there's a long way to go.
There's a big market out there for this type of equipment waiting to be tapped.