Building on the promise of the Neuros OSD, the high definition Neuros OSD 2.0 developer kits, developed in collaboration with Texas Instruments (TI) is now on sale at the Neuros Store . The goal of the OSD2 is to do to the TV what the IBM PC (and the like) did to computers, namely to provide an open set-top device for TV applications. Simply put, without an open computing device, there would have been no PC killer apps. Without an open video recorder, there can be no TV killer apps.
The OSD2 is an open video recorder that's capable of high def video recording from virtually any source and playback in a variety of formats. Using TI's DaVinci DM 6446 chipset, the Neuros OSD 2.0 will offer the first truly open embedded video recording device. “TI's support for this initiative represents a significant milestone, not just for Open Internet Television Platforms, but open electronics generally,” said Mark Denissen, vice president, Worldwide Strategic Marketing, Texas Instruments .
There's a giant race to connect the internet to the TV set. There are hosts of proprietary devices that put a walled garden around selected sources and use the internet to deliver that content. On the other hand, there are media center PCs typically bring the cost, noise and complexity of the PC to the living room. What is needed is a device that combines the compelling attributes of electronics hardware in terms of silence, cost, simplicity and efficiency with the openess of a PC.
If you are an innovator, entrepreneur, or individual software developer, we hope you will consider getting in on the ground floor of a phenomenon that could change the TV in just the same way it changed the PC. Already we have porting efforts from Morphine.TV, VLC, WhereverTV as well as developer contributions too numerous to mention, from crowd narration to last.fm to a web browser.
The OSD 2.0 is being made available as a developer kit , but if you are interested in getting involved as a user, sign up to Beta test and we'll contact you with an application when ready. For those looking for immediate gratification, we put the mature OSD 1 on sale for $149.99 until Friday, Sept 19th.
With the Neuros OSD 2.0, companies, and even individuals, can now target viewers directly with their television applications without having to get into the hardware business, because Neuros makes the hardware available directly to your users.
If you'd like to customize the Neuros hardware, there are plenty of options there too. The developer kits come in a miniITX housing that allows the addition of peripherals including harddrives and more. As well, Neuros sells the credit card sized OSD 2.0 CPU board alone for as little as $129 for those looking for complete flexibility.
For specs and details, see the OSD2 Wiki Page For a video explaining why we created the OSD2, see Here
Pricing and Availability:
The Neuros OSD 2.0 developer kit is available directly at The Neuros Store for $249.99 (USD).
Comments
Lack of digital audio output??
I've looked at the specs and noticed that the osd 2 lacks a digital audio output jack (optical or coax). I love my OSD 1.0, but I will not buy an OSD 2.0 without digital audio. Most of my ripped avis have ac3 dolby surround sound audio. Hopefully this will be changed before the actual OSD ships.
ETA for "consumer-ready" version?
I know the OSD2 will be available "when it's ready". But I wondered if you had a very rough ETA for the "final hardware". (I am enough of a hacker that I can change any software -- but I don't want to mess with development hardware.)
Do you think 6 months? A year? Two years? Five years? Basically I'm wondering if I need to get something else -- if it's going to be 6 months or a year I'll just wait for it, if it's going to be 2 years I won't.
Please make the remote sensor better than version 1
The whole system looks cool, until i saw the same crappy little remote sensor. On the finished product, could there please be decent remote operations.
Hardware accelerated playback
Hi Joe,
Interesting product you've got here. I note the wiki doesn't mention what the limitations are on the hardware accelerated playback of h.264 material. Now, I can see that it's limited to 720p, but is that "real-world" 720p (ie 1280×720) or is it 720p as used in this device (1024×768)? Will the box only accelerate recordings that it makes itself? Moreover, is there an upper bitrate that will choke the device? How will it respond if you attempt to play a 1080i/p h.264 video? Will it fail outright?
Secondly, are the hardware specs firm? It is a limitation that capture input on component can only be up to 1024×768. While 1920×1080 would be nice, it seems that at least the ability to take 1280×720 via component is necessary. Otherwise, the next option down is 720×480... actually, in what scenario will 1024×768 capture via component ever be useful? I've never seen a box that could output that resolution via component. At 1024×768/6 Mbit, if the encoding is single pass, I can only assume that the quality will be a little painful.
I'd love to get a box and do some work w/ Myth on it, but I would like to understand the hardware realities better first.
1080P Playback?
For those of us primarily interested in using our OSD's as devices for plackback, will this new version be capable of decoding and playing back 1080P H.264? I can't quite tell from the specifications page. (http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/OSD2.0_HD_Specifications)
Slick new piece of hardware, I can't wait to see what you do with it!
Scratch that...
...I didn't scroll down far enough. (http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/OSD2.0_HD_Specifications#Video_2)
Oh well, maybe in a future release?
Quad video processor?
I've been wanting to build something that acts as a quad video processor. I have 4 video cameras and would like to combine them into a single 720p feed. Does this box have any hardware that would help in that regard (I realize I'd still need a quad-input capture card).
Need something to combine the 4 feeds
You need something to combine the 4 feeds into one single component or composite input signal. Then you feed it into the OSD2 and it will be able to record it.
However it can't, by itself, combine the input from the various connectors (it has 2 composite and one component input). You can only switch between them and use one of them as source.
Hope it helps.
Quad video
I know this chip is used in those kinds of reference designs, and the device certainly has sizers and rescalers, but for a real answer, you're probably going to have to head over to the mailing list and/or #neuros on freenode.net on IRC (see links in the sidebar)
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