• Registered: 2008-03-07
  • Posts: 28

Topic: Video performace

I'm thinking about picking up a Chumby but wondering how is the video speed and performance on this device?
I notice in the specs that it uses WiFi 802.11b is this correct? That would mean it uses the slower network speed that most of us are moving away from in our quest for faster throughput (wifi g and N are more standard now). So this is why I wonder if this device is going to give me smooth video streaming or less then satisfactory experience.

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,199

Re: Video performace

The chumby is a 802.11g device, connected through a USB 2.0 full speed port.  If you see any specifications on our site that it's an 802.11b device, please let me know and I'll correct that.

However, the chumby was not fundamentally designed as a video playback device, and the CPU is not powerful enough to play arbitrary video that you might stumble across on the net.  We do play a large fraction of the QVGA Flash video, and we're constantly working on improving our video performance, but it's not an Apple TV.

Most devices in this class are not powerful enough to play video - they typically have specialized hardware or DSPs to perform that function.  The iPhone, for instance, has a specialized DSP for decoding H.264 video, and mobile phones typically have similar hardware for 3GPP.

Duane's Website