Althought not officially announced, Chumby is currently developing a Linux-based IPTV media player that can be remotely controlled by a Wi-Fi connected Android device. It will be offered as an open development platform where both software and hardware will be made available to developers.
NeTV is built around a Marvell Armada 166 processor clocked at 800 MHZ (88AP166 – Armada 100 Family) with 2GB RAM, a MicroSD slot and Wifi. The media player is powered via micro USB and comes with a 7-button IR remote, although you might prefer to use your Android device to control the device via a WiFi connection. NeTV STB supports HD resolution (480p, 720p & 1080p24 “True Cinema”).
On the software side, NeTV provides what they call “Smart Event Display” that allows you to receive personalized internet news via Twitter, Facebook and other internet news source. Android users can also enjoy seamless SMS and email updates on their news banner. Users will also be able to view web pages on their TV thanks to the embedded Webkit browser and use their smartphone to select the web page. Finally, they’ll be able to share photo via their Android smartphones and tablets. The iPhone will be supported later on.
Chumby hardware resource are available at http://git.chumby.com.sg/netv_hardware/ where you’ll find the mechanical design (solidworks format), breakout board and FPGA schematics (altium designer and PDF formats), bom, gerber and pcb files.
There are two categories of software development for NeTV: firmware and application development.
Firmware development includes the kernel, drivers, and application programs. See the Firmware Development section for details. There are 2 ways to start firmware development:
- NeTV AMI Instance for developers, OEMs, and professionals requiring a full SDK.
- NeTV local compilation for hobbyists and hackers.
NeTV is based on OpenEmbedded Linux distribution and the code can be cloned via git.
There are three git repositories:
- chumby-oe – Contains setup scripts and the bitbake program
- openembedded – A mirror of the openembedded monolithic project
- meta-chumby – An overlay on top of openembedded that implements chumby code
Please visit https://github.com/clearwater/chumby-oe to retrieve those or clone it with the git URL git://github.com/clearwater/chumby-oe.git.
Application development includes widgets, event generators and android and there are 3 categories for application development:
- NeTV local UI – modifying the UI presented on the screen
- NeTV web services – http services on tcp port 80 that enable Android and iOS interaction
- NeTV event architecture – creating events that show up in the crawler on the screen
NeTV does not have Ethenert PHY, but it will automatically configure the USB Port to act as an USB Ethernet port so that you can access the board for development.
Further information is available on What is NeTV and NeTV Developer Info pages.
The price for NeTV has not been announced yet, but according the Chumby Facebook page, more details will be unveiled at the Open Hardware Summit on September 15th.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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