A possible way to improve M740 reusing existing software

[hamish]

All members views are requested.

Now that access to the M740 has been cracked. There is a very similar box using the same core where quite a lot of software has already been developed and I believe is open source.

www.prismiq.com

Have a look at that site and the associated forums as this could be a great help in the software development as it uses the same core processor

Your views please

[hamish]

I know this is not exactly the correct place to talkabout this but it sort of follows on.
1/ Why buy a M740?
If you want a BVB-t box then there are a large number of better boxes at 60 - 100 Euro

If you want a DVB-T recorder there are a number at similar price that truely work ( bugs removed)

What M740 brings is the ability to port media to and from PC creating a usefull media center

The chip set in M740 is the limiying factor as it restricts the media to MPEG2 and MP3 etc. The current PRISMiQ box uses the same chipset and gets around the restrictions by having external software that preprocesses the media in real time .

Siemens when they get their act together will get the DVB-T and recorder software sorted out however this will still leave the skin (MMI) and nice to have features missing. this is where the existing PRISMIQ software comes in.

Just a thought!
Sorry for posting this here

[hamish]

PRISMIQ.org is a better link

have a look

[Luchs]

Hamish, i think you have a point here.

As it might not be possible to to have a media player installed on the box itself that is capable of running divx or xvid and stuff like that, the external software solution of that media center might come in handy.
And the prismic box has almost the same technical specs as the siemens box.
So it would be great if it would be possible to port some software from there. Object reuse has always been the friend of programmers ...

The box has shoutcast streaming, instant messaging support and many of the more advanced features of todays home electronic gear.

Cheers,

Luchs

[hase]

Hamish, i think you have a point here.

As it might not be possible to to have a media player installed on the box itself that is capable of running divx or xvid and stuff like that, the external software solution of that media center might come in handy.


The processor in the Siemens box is probably not capable of decoding any MPEG-4 Format.
cat /proc/cpuinfo shows the BogoMips as 166 on mine, roughly a factor 8 behind my Pentium-III Linux box (Coppermine at 1k3 Bogo).

I think the only possible way to extend the Siemens or similar MIPS boxes towards new codecs will be processing elsewhere.
I thought about adding hardware, but that will be a bit too complex for a hobby project.

hase

[Luchs]

@hase: Genau das hab ich ja gesagt!
Die PROSMIQ Media Box, um die es sich hier handelt, wird als Multimedia Abspielstation verkauft und hat eine "Zuspielersoftware", die alles außer mpeg 2 und mp3 vorverarbeitet und es dann weiter an die Box schickt. Die beschriebene Box hat den gleichen Prozessor/Chip wie die Siemens und die gleiche Ram-Ausstattung. Sie kann aber aufgrund der Software alle Formate von eine PC empfangen!!!!
Zudem hat sie einen Web-Browser und Instant Messaging sowie Internet Radio Clients.
Mich würde es wundern, wenn die übrige Hardware nicht ziemlich identisch wäre.
Die Box besitzt keinen Tuner, dafür aber einen pcmcia Slot für wlan Karten und kein USB.
Man könnte sicherlich das eine oder andere wiederverwenden!

[Luchs]

Dieser Link könnte ja für einige interessant sein:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/modprismiq/