Skip to Content

WoW Insider is getting ready for BlizzCon!
AOL Tech

arm posts

XBMC ARM port teased, will manage HD playback from pocket-sized Beagleboard (video)

XBMC ARM port teased, will manage HD playback from pocket-sized Beagleboard (video)
There was a time when the X in XBMC stood for Xbox, but now just look at it. The open source project is showing up on everything from MIDs to Apple TVs and soon will be in the wild running on ARM-powered devices, with the development team posting a teaser video of the software running quite well on a tiny 600MHz Beagleboard. It's a fraction of the size of most HTPCs and, at $150, a fraction of their cost, too. Right now the software seems to be struggling a bit with what looks to be 480p wide content, but the devs promise proper HD playback in the full release -- though they're not saying when that full release will be.

[Via Hack A Day]

Neuros OSD 3 in development, makers want your input


Neuros has earned significant kudos with techies for its hackable OSD media player / recorder and its commitment to open source software. It's no surprise then to see the company reaching out to its loyal community for input on what should be found in the third generation of the device. Yes, technically the OSD 2 isn't even out of the developer kit stage yet, but Neuros is planning well ahead of time, with the 3.0 model unlikely to be seen for another 18 months. Founder Joe Born has confirmed a continuing partnership with Texas Instruments on an ARM-based unit, which should be able to play and record at 1080p / 60 with support for all the relevant formats and containers. There'll be a minimum of 2GB DDR3 RAM, as well as a HTML5- and Flash-compliant browser, but the rest of the specs are up to you -- if there's some killer feature you simply must have, hit the read link and let Neuros know.

[Via Slashgear]

TI's OMAP 4 bringing 1080p support to smartphones and MIDs

Right around this time last year, Texas Instruments was busy showing off its OMAP 3 platform, which enabled 720p playback from a mobile phone. At this year's MWC, we've got a real live handset recording 720p, and TI upping the ante once more with a chip that handles 1080p. For those still with us after being blasted with resolutions, the predictably titled OMAP 4 aims to bring 1080p support, 20 megapixel imaging and "approximately a week of audio play time" to mobiles and MIDs that house it. Granted, TI also calls this stuff "future-proof," so don't believe it's totally incapable of uttering some pretty outlandish stuff. At the heart of the platform is a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 chip, a programmable multimedia engine based on TI's C64x DSP and a POWERVR SGX540 graphics engine. We're told that it'll play nice with Linux variants such as Android and LiMo, Symbian and Windows Mobile, though it'll have to be mighty impressive to outgun NVIDIA's Tegra. Battle on, we say.

[Via Linux Devices]

Texas Instruments demos first 720p playback from a mobile phone

Texas Instruments demonstrated its first processor to enable high definition (720p) playback on mobile phones yesterday at 3GSM World Congress. The OMAP3430, first announced last year, is the first in TI's series of OMAP 3 processors and also first to include support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics standard for 3D acceleration. The 3430 gets the muscle to move your HD files and 3D gaming from its embedded ARM Cortex-A8 processor, but from the specs it seems that the video portion is only currently supporting up to 1024 x 768 (XGA) output via composite or S-video connections. Still, with this power available, sometime in the future your common cellphone will be playing back HD on the go or outputting video to a big screen HDTV. We previously expected to see handsets based on the technology this year, but while TI is shipping samples of the processors now, don't expect your HD-capable cell to hit stores until early 2008.




    AOL News

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: