Topic: Firewire and video

Your hardware appears to be very similar to the NSLU2. A lot of interesting things have been done with the NSLU2. http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

Two more ports,  Ethernet and Firewire,  would greatly broaden the application of this device for video purposes. The NSLU2 is missing a Firewire port. New cable boxes in the US are required (you may have to ask for the right box) to work over Firewire. You can tune and record the channels using the Firewire port. The demand on the Chumby hardware is not that high, you just record the MP4 stream off from the Firewire and onto the USB disk, there is no need to decode it. For playback you run a UPNP AV server and the MP4 is streamed back out unchanged. Ethernet is not required but it is useful since it is unreliable to stream video over wireless connections. Can you get USB, Firewire and Ethernet all in the same chip? AFAIK no cheap embedded type device exists with a Firewire port.

Re: Firewire and video

We'll look into it - sounds like an interesting hack for someone to do.

We'd certainly have to look at the costs to include that much hardware in the device.  Chances are that cost is the reason why you don't see Firewire in many embedded devices.  But it's something to investigate...

Re: Firewire and video

There are eight PCI add-in cards for Firewire at Newegg for under $10. Chips can't be that expensive.

Re: Firewire and video

Are those cheap firewire cards really doing any of the work? They remind me of 'soft modems', where the real work is all done by the processor, and the chumby isn't the most powerful of beasts and probably doesnt have an abundance of cpu cycles to spend.

Re: Firewire and video

I have one in my Linux box right now and it is using the ieee1394/ohci1394 driver. Every Firewire card I owned used those drivers.  Is the hardware standardized now?

Re: Firewire and video

chumby is a bedside clock thingy. so unless you have a cable box in your bedroom, and a long enough firewire cable, i dont see much point to this. you would be better running the firewire cable to a pc, then streaming it over wi-fi.

its 320x240, so you could probably stream the whole thing to the linux SWAP on the memory stick. just use mp4, cos AFAIK ipod videos use a 233mhz ARM processor, so it can be done.

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
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password is chumby

Re: Firewire and video

chedabob wrote:

chumby is a bedside clock thingy. so unless you have a cable box in your bedroom, and a long enough firewire cable, i dont see much point to this. you would be better running the firewire cable to a pc, then streaming it over wi-fi.

I'm going to stick a Chumby in the stero cabinet. No fan, it is silent.

Re: Firewire and video

How about embeding a small camera such as in the apple macbook line up into the chumby as an "eye" turn the chumby into a webcam server?

~ryan~

~Ryan~

Re: Firewire and video

hardware limits. although i did run a black and white webcam at 15fps on a 233mhz pc, so its certainly possible

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby

Re: Firewire and video

I don't see the advantages to having an ethernet port, since it's basically a wireless device, but one thing that would be nice, if you have a USB flash device already plugged in, is to have some sort of file manager or ftp app that could get onto your home box, or say, your mp3tunes locker, via your wireless connection, and pull tunes onto your flash drive from there.

Re: Firewire and video

you mean like Samba? i mentioned this a few times

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby

Re: Firewire and video

With a 320x240px screen (am I right here?) streaming video surely won't be needing a firewire or RJ-45 port. I'd be delighted if I could stream Flash Video from the web, or my LAN to the chumby and a WiFi connection will provide enough bandwidth for this. Even a 700kbps stream at this resolution will look awesome, and leave plenty of room on most broadband connections.

Incidentally what speed WiFi connection is on this puppy, 11g? I'd rather have a chumby with 11bb in my hand than wait around for an 11n version.

Re: Firewire and video

Maybe have the chumby have a self-hosted HTTP-based control interface and file management?

--neg

hoping for a chumby release before xmas.
every chumby is squishy, except the ones that arent.