OpenBricks

The multimedia components of OpenBricks have been greatly improved to now feature up to 4 kind of MediaCenter software to turn your device into an HTPC. As a user, if you intend to build your own SetTopBox (through GeeXboX distribution flavour for example), you may now choose between Enna (EFL-based), XBMC (SDL-based), MythTV (Qt3 based) and QtMediaHub (Qt4/QML-based).

Along from Enna, which was the only supported MediaCenter so far, we just added the XBMC and MythTV, the 2 major HTPC software ever. While MythTV is still quite a bit work-in-progress so far, XBMC works like a charm, including on OMAP devices. XBMC 10.0 just has been released a few ago and was integrated within OpenBricks, offering a complete hardware video decoding support either through CrystalHD, VDPAU or VA-API frameworks. XBMC for ARM is working so far but unfortunately doesn’t yet provide any acceleration but it’s in the work.

A newcomer also has been added through the experimental QtMediaHub project. This is a proof-of-concept application from Nokia that re-uses XBMC skin engine (and Confluence theme) to create a MediaCenter fully written in the new QML language, that already features many nice things like audio/video playback, pictures browsing but also a nice Web Browser.

We’ll try to provide testing binaries and images ASAP …

The Broadcom BCM70012 and BCM70015 Crystal HD advanced media processor are low cost, low power, highly integrated solution for high definition (HD) video playback applications. They are targeted for PC/x86 applications such as playback of streaming video content, Blu-ray Disc playback, file-based content, and broadcast and other TV sources. These are Mini-PCIe chips that suit really well in any Netbook, MacMini or other kind of SetTopBox and provide a complete CPU offloading through hardware video decoding of several resource-consuming  codecs such as:

• H.264/AVC HP at L 4.1 1080p/1080i up to 40 Mbps.
• SMPTE VC-1 AP at L 3 1080p/1080i up to 40 Mbps.
• WMV9 (VC-1 SP and MP)
• MPEG-2 MP @ ML and MP @ HL

Support for these chips now have been integrated within OpenBricks and have been made available through GStreamer and VLC additional decoders.