OSD capability

[dongle]

Hi,

Will the OSD have any hardware features that will be of interest to people wanting to use it beyond the living room ?. For example could the serial port be used as a wired remote control ?.  I note that the maximum resolution is 720x480, is this the same for the PAL version ?.

Cheers

Pat

[dragonwisard(at)gmail.com]

I belive there will only be one version that supports both NTSC and PAL. Therefore, the answer would be yes.

[JoeBorn]

The OSD has plenty of features that would be of interest, I believe.  Serial can be used for a remote (or a variety of other things as well) as can USB Host.  Check out http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/OSD_Ideas for some general ideas.  It's an open platform in many ways, Linux, open application software, available schematics and hardware support, and obviously support from the manufacturer.

[dongle]

Joe,

Thanks for the reply. It will be interesting to see what features become available. 

Open source is great but what happens when someone would like a new feature but cannot program the OSD. Will there be a "wish list" that people can subscribe to in the hope that someone will write the code ?.

Also it would appear that the OSD will consume less power than the R2. Can you publish the power consumption for the following:

OSD connected to supply but not "On" (quiescent current)
OSD On
OSD Recording
OSD Playback

I am assuming the system will work in roughly the same manner as the R2. I also realise that these figures may vary according to the way it will be programmed but the first release can probably be regarded as a baseline in terms of power consumption.

Cheers

[JoeBorn]

What makes you think power consumption will be less with the OSD?  I'd assume it will be more.  It has a faster processor, more memory, etc.  Sean, can you chime in on power consumption.

Of course, we'll always be interested in hearing about features you want and trying to respond to our customers internally.  We don't view the community as a substitute for our own development work.

EDIT:

I should add that as far as a wish list, we actually have team members assigned to monitoring all the communications and making sure they make it into bugzilla (our central repository for bugs and enhancement requests).  At the same time, you are always free to enter and vote on bugs directly there:  bugzilla.neurostechnology.com this is the database that our internal and community developers share to prioritize work.

[dongle]

My mistake regarding lower power than the R2, can we have some numbers for the OSD please ?

Cheers

[sean weng]

Here are the OSD Power consume data:
No power but battery: 3.3 uW
Power on but no video: about 1.3 W
Power on and have video: about 1.75 W
Recording: about 1.65 W
Playing: about 1.4 W

[dongle]

Thanks for the info.

So the OSD  consumes around 30% less power than the R2 when recording, could be a good selling point !.