electronics/netv

Chumby NeTV

Chumby Wiki NeTV Page

Opening the case: the grey rubber on the bottom peels up at the corners to reveal 4 small philips head screws. Then the top part of the case needs to be unsnapped from the bottom by wedging the long sides apart; be careful when removing the top not to apply pressure on the IR extension jack.

Hardware

netv v2 BOM

MCU
Bom says “Marvell 88AP166-A0-BJD2C008”, chip says 88AP1-BJD2 P1V8690.5 1004 ADP TV. This is similar to a chip in the Microsoft Kinect. 800 MHz
Removable Flash
1Gb MicroSD card
RAM

Hynix HY5PS1G1631C FP-S5 C 023A

1Gb DDR2 SDRAM

Datasheet PDF

FPGA

Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9 TQG144AIV1121 D4248875A 2C

~$18/each for small orders. Has 9152 logic cells, 576Kb RAM blocks, 16 DSP slices, 2 memory controllers.

WIFI
USB module with AzureWave AW-NU137 chip.

CPU Software Environment

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.28 #1 Tue Aug 30 16:41:06 SGT 2011 armv5tejl GNU/Linux

$ df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root               481.9M    276.4M    181.1M  60% /
none                     61.6M    128.0K     61.5M   0% /dev
/dev/mmcblk0p3          424.4M     15.1M    387.4M   4% /media/storage
/dev/mmcblk0p3          424.4M     15.1M    387.4M   4% /var
/dev/mmcblk0p3          424.4M     15.1M    387.4M   4% /psp
tmpfs                    61.6M    392.0K     61.2M   1% /var/volatile
tmpfs                    61.6M         0     61.6M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                    61.6M         0     61.6M   0% /media/ram

$ free -m 
total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           123         92         30          0          3         59
-/+ buffers/cache:         29         93
Swap:            0          0          0

I get this dmesg notifcation about 30 seconds after boot when the netv is powered by USB from my Thinkpad X200s laptop (which is plugged in to wall power):

[   34.140267] A Device didn't response because the VBUS is low!

HDMI

wikipedia article on HDMI

HDMI is evil shit; you “must” pay a $0.04/device licensing fee. DisplayPort is free but is much more complicated.

HDCP is the evil DRM shit that encrypts video data going over HDMI connections. This protocol was already being used over DVI connections; HDMI just adds more features.

HDMI Features
HDMI Version Max Res. Max Pixel Clk Total Bandwidth
1.0 (2002) 1920x1200 165 MHz 3.96 Gbit/s
1.3 (2006) 2560x1600 340 MHz 8.16 Gbit/s
1.4 (2009) 4096x2160 340 MHz 8.16 Gbit/s

http://rdist.root.org/2011/09/13/the-magic-inside-bunnies-new-netv/

http://wiki.chumby.com/index.php/NeTV_developer_info

Project Ideas

  • Audio waterfall FFT visualizer, a la baudline
  • Benchtop ’scope and logic analyser driver (when combined with arduino?)
  • Video Filters
  • Retro video game emulation
  • LISP machine (using spartan)
  • Quasicrystal video frame
  • Digital art platform (“subscribe”? broadcast code via FM radio?)
  • WiFi network sniffing and visualization
  • 2.4GHz spectrum analyzer (wifi, bluetooth, 802.15.4, etc… either abstract art or technical tool)
  • HDMI video debugger (status information, etc)
  • Video statistics display (color balance, framerate, motion, etc)