Ideas for new features

[Lord Raiden]

Hi everyone.  A couple ideas struck me recently that I thought would be good to pass along to the community to get feedback on and possibly even pass on to the developers.  Some of these ideas have come from my recently completed review of the device and much discussion with one of the public relations guys for Neuros and I think they'd be worth considering.   These ideas are above and beyond what I've already discussed with him. 

1.  Plug in tv tuner - Now given that Neuros is working on direct integration with Miro, Joost and other IPTV providers, this may not be needed, but I figured to suggest it anyways.  The idea is to take something like this and allow the Neuros OSD to be able to play it.  The idea behind having it external is that my understanding of the device, as was told to me by the Neuros representative, is to keep the device lean and lite.  Therefore, since it's already got one USB port, it only seems logical to be able to put it to use for something other than just USB storage devices.

The USB tv tuner would of course sit external to the device and do all the heavy duty work passing nothing but the final video signal to the unit itself.  This way it could also be an optional device for those wanting to go that far.  Those that didn't could stick with just the basic device.  Again, this may not be needed anymore, or for all I know it may not even be possible, but it still doesn't hurt to throw out the idea and see what you get. 

2.  Use VLC engine as decoding backend - Another thing that was mentioned to me when asking about why certain formats weren't supported, I was told that the OSD relies on a commercial codec pack or engine or some kind that only includes mainstream codecs.  Now I might be wrong in assuming this, but if the core of the OSD is open source, why not have the codec pack be as well?  VLC is a completely open source player with a rock solid, and quite well feature decoder engine that has all the current codecs, and even a bunch of obscure ones, built in.  Since it can play nearly any codec out there by default without having to have a single codec installed on the machine (it does everything internally), it would make a great replacement to the current decoding engine.  Just a thought.  ^_^;;

Feel free to discuss any of these two ideas, or if you must, shred them to pieces if need be. 

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Lord Raiden - Chief Penguin - Raiden's Realm

[greyback]

Greetings!
Ideas and suggestions are always welcome. Since the OSD is so flexible, many people have many ideas to make it their perfect device. And certainly your suggestions are two of the more common requests.

First off, I'd love a tuner in the OSD. It would be great, no messing with IR blaster, no leaving TV or VCR on standby, no messing with cables (as I need to do). There would be messing due to the fact yet another device needs for channels to be tuned in, but I guess this is a once off so no biggie. Digital or Analogue is a question, since we're kinda in the middle of that transitory phase, but clever tuners can do both.

The problem with your suggestion for a USB key is that commonly, all they do is digitise the analogue signal and pass it to the main CPU for processing into a picture. This requires a fair bit of grunt, at least one Gigahertz, which the OSD doesn't have. Now the more expensive USB keys actually do this processing on board with dedicated electronics, converting the analogue signal to mpeg4, so that's the way to go, but then all the OSD does it sit there & save this mpeg4 to disk. However one concern I'd have is that the OSD's USB port only supports USB 1.1, so I'd be curious to see if it's fast enough for this.

Another possibility I think you're alluding to might be an external tuner, that the OSD could control (via the serial port maybe?), taking in the usual tv signal and outputting composite that the OSD can record. This would rock! I'd definitely go for this.

Your second idea is less possible I'm afraid. The whole reason the OSD has closed codecs is because the hardware is highly specialised towards video de/encoding. It doesn't have the usual x86 processor inside, instead a dedicated Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chip running at  about 150Mhz, which is capable of doing such a task because of clever optimisations that x86 don't have.

For example, the chip in your bog standard DVD player is nowhere near as powerful as your PC, but it's specially designed for the tasks it performs (decoding & de-css-ing mpeg4), so does it well. On the other hand, your PC's x86 processor is the jack of all trades, so needs to be far more powerful to do the same task.

It's the same for the DSP in the OSD. Unfortunately the DSP is not an open, there is no open source compiler for it (only an expensive one from the manufacturers), nor open documents to help one to be made. The only choices are either reverse-engineering, of this there has been some progress, or buying proprietary codecs made by specialists, who naturally won't allow their code to be open sourced. This was the choice made by Neuros.

VLC is too power intensive to run on the OSD's CPU, an ARM processor chip running at about 200Mhz, so it's a no-go I'm afraid.

Any chance you'd link to your review, I'd like to see what you think of the OSD. Welcome to the boards!
-G

[Lord Raiden]

Another possibility I think you're alluding to might be an external tuner, that the OSD could control (via the serial port maybe?), taking in the usual tv signal and outputting composite that the OSD can record. This would rock! I'd definitely go for this.

Yeah, that was the idea.  But in a compact size to go with the compact size of the OSD.  I simply pointed to the USB tv tuners as a reference to what I was thinking of for an external tuner more than actually using ones like you mention.  The whole idea behind having it external was so that it didn't put any load on the OSD itself.  If it puts any load on the OSD aside from streaming and recording, then it defeats its intended purpose, which is to provide access to analog and digital TV as well as cable without loading the OSD itself.

VLC is too power intensive to run on the OSD's CPU, an ARM processor chip running at about 200Mhz, so it's a no-go I'm afraid.

Hmm, an Arm processor, eh?  Have the developers looked into some of the specialized AMD or Via processors?  I've worked with a few of them and they do an incredible job in multimedia applications.  I've also seen the AMD Geode processor used as a DSP and it does pretty darned good.  Ok, sure it's an x86 chip, but it holds its own nicely.    Can't remember the exact names of the chips, but both companies have ones that are DSP specific that do an incredible job.  Those may be something they could look into or consider. 

Any chance you'd link to your review, I'd like to see what you think of the OSD. Welcome to the boards!
-G

Ask and you shall receive.    http://www.raiden.net/?cat=2&aid=326

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Lord Raiden - Chief Penguin - Raiden's Realm

[Lord Raiden]

Hey, another thought just struck me recently.  There's been talk about making Joost run with the Neuros.  Why not also make Miro run with it?  Miro has easily 10x's the channels, NO DRM and it's entirely open source.  I think that'd stick much better with Neuro's open source commitment.

http://www.getmiro.com/articles/miro_vs_joost.php

There's a good overview of why Miro rocks more than Joost. 

[rblanco]

Lord Raiden I agree with your ideas for new features, too bad the OSD doesn't have enough power for VLC.

However, I would like to suggest simple feature requests. I am sorry if these features are already available...

1) Just as with Audio playback there is a way to create an Audio playlist and somewhat edit it, could the same be created for video?
I would like to make a playlist for video file playback (just like the Audio capabilities,) and is there a way to save the playlist to an attached usb drive/media card/network drive?

2) Since the OSD has uPnP capabilities could it act as both uPnP server and client?

3) Any developments in getting keyboard (usb/bluetooth/infrared), mouse, or touch screen support?

4) RSS parser, podcast/vidcast support.

Thanks!

[nashienet]

Subscribing to podcasts/RSS support would be my personal fave!!

[tekrat]

Here's my crazy add-on idea: Instead of a USB addon, why not just have $30 or 40 TV Tunner that is form factor molded to sit under the OSD?  You would make the tuner's remote work with both units so didn't have to have two remotes laying around.  You would include mini cables to let you plug directly into OSB's audio and video inputs.

A future version could include both in one unit.

[bagster]

Using this same form factor, a hard drive enclosure for 2.5 drive can be great.  Of a bigger one for 3.5, with a USB hub maybe?