In all seriousness I was actually looking at these guys; Envision Plastics

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Matt Sealey

Just when everyone and his dog was touting Cherrypal as vaporware (and with reason), the first Cherrypal unit has been received by a single customer:

http://cherrypal.blogspot.com/2008/12/c ... -door.html

http://greentechgirl.com/green-computin ... oes-exist/

Not exactly spectacular, but the unit works.

Incredible! Did she get one of the development
platforms, just to keep the community quiet for
a few more months?

We never said they did not exist. Here is one next to an open Open Client earlier this year on a table in the Office.

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

Except no documentation, she didn't have a keyboard or mouse, and that's NOT a phone jack on the back.

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Matt Sealey

Information has started to reach the Internet.

Have a look...

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

Any suggestion? The source that I've been following lately is a certain "Greentechgirl", which seems to be one of those "brand angels" CherryPal delivered first. In her latest blog, there's still no photos or videos. That would be shocking, but what is really shocking is that not even CherryPal themselves have photos or videos about their own product!

At least, Stephanie does write a kind of summary about the device:
I think it's very fair. It's a pity that someone so knowledgeable doesn't write a full review, nor provide some footage about the subject. In the end, she is no computer journalist, but information about this product is so scarce that it's understandable that people ask her.

It's very nice to see what some people comment in that site. They say that this very PowerDeveloper site is the main source of information about the CherryPal! It's tempting to tell them the whole story... Or let them learn it by themselves by reading here, if they are really interested.

snip lots of nice pics outlining the market spaces it could use.

HOWEVER takemehomegrandma, it DOES NOT have the one option that would make it and take it above and beyond ANYTHING on the market now or in the near future.

that being, having a cheap, generic AVC HD Encoder/Decoder SOC onboard as standard, that anyone can/could use with simple intigrated included software etc.

having this generic working prototype HD AVC Encoder/Decoder SOC on your low power board,NOW thats something that people all over the world wont and will pay for RIGHT NOW, IF only someone would make and provides that for them to buy ASAP ... not some vaporware that doesnt really do anything the others cant already be made to do....

you only have to look at how the basic embeded HD decodeing Popcorn Hour A-100 etc, took off,and everyone advocates one of its several models.

theres obviously a long time real need and want for Popcorn Hour ,and more so,its matching generic low power (better than)realtime HD AVC/H.264 H@L4.1 Encoder/Decoder all in one HDMI motherboard/ freeNAS, and that could have been some current Efika prototype i spoke about them making long ago, but still nothing...

just a very quick search brings you this cheap yet powerful mobile/handheld chipset/SOC (OC you could also use it in a 3rd party USB stick and the like , anyone doing that today), not as flexable as FPGA OC and not a PPC SOC but its cheap and flexible, and Ohh look...

"Each chip is a real-time H.264/MPEG4-AVC High Definition (level 4.1) Encoder/Decoder (Codec) that provides the ideal mix of flexibility and power efficiency for consumer electronics
applications....."

"full HD (1920x1080). Qpixel
is also raising the power-performance bar by being the first to offer
full HD H.264 encoding at less than 275 mW of power,"

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRel ... BW20080602
Industry's Lowest-Power Full HD H.264 Codecs With the Broadest Feature Set Unveiled...
Sun Jun 1, 2008 8:00pm EDT"

potential for low power PCIE audio etc.... as per above referenced
http://www.design-reuse.com/news/19585/ ... n-2-0.html
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Nov. 20, 2008 -- Xilinx, Inc.
Xilinx Offers First 5Gbps FPGA-Based Solution Compliant With PCI Express Version 2.0

The recently announced Virtex-5 TXT FPGA platform, which has up to 48 RocketIO GTX transceivers, also supports the PCIe 2.0 standard. Drawing less than 150mW typical, per transceiver at 5Gbps, the RocketIO GTX transceivers enable designers to realize high-speed PCIe 2.0 performance on an FPGA with minimal power consumption.

To see a Tech-on-Line webcast on how to implement PCI Express version 2.0 compliant designs with Virtex-5 FPGAs, please visit: http://www.techonline.com/learning/webinar/211800334.
....

The Virtex-5 FXT platform includes the first FPGAs to feature industry-standard PowerPC(R) 440 processor blocks. It also includes up to 24 high performance GTX transceivers capable of 6.5Gbps performance and DSP48E slices that deliver more than 190 GMAC's of performance.

The Virtex-5 TXT FPGA platform is the fifth addition Virtex-5 FPGA family and delivers twice as many 6.5Gbps GTX transceivers as the Virtex-5 FXT FPGA platform to enable 40G and 100G system in networking, telecom, audio/video broadcast and medical imaging by providing a single-chip solution for applications such as 100GbE MAC-to-Interlaken bridging.

Jeez popper. Will you drop it already?

You can buy cheap AVC HD Encoder/Decoder SoCs right now, that's for sure. Sigma Designs do them, TI do them, the problem is getting one with a reasonable CPU behind it so that you can do more than just decode HD.

All the Popcorn Hour boxes do is storage and media playback. That's it. That's all they CAN do. BitTorrent, a bit of web browsing.. sure, if you can do it on a 200MHz mobile phone you can do it on these chips.

There is no SoC that has an AVC encoder/decoder that works in HD that is backed by a decent CPU. The closest is the TI DaVinci but it's limited to ~720p. In the event that you find a chip that is pretty good for the purpose, usually you get an AVC decoder with a weak CPU behind it - so you basically will be putting a good Freescale etc. SoC connected to a weak other SoC and attempting to let them communicate. They aren't meant to work with other chips, which is why they're SoCs and not just plain decoder ASICs, and why they cost so much. The MPC5200B for example is under $20, the MPC5121e under $30. You would be lucky to get an AVC decoder chip for less than $60.

And let's be clear, the only solution right now is to put on a generic SoC like the MPC5200B or something similar, and put on a dedicated AVC decoder chip to some bus or other. Let's also be clear, these chips cost more than the BOM of the entire Efika board.

Let's also be clear on this: Popcorn Hour A-100 doesn't come with wireless or a built-in hard disk. So you're adding $70 each time to add to this. The box costs more than $350 for the needs you want it for. The Efika already costs that and it doesn't do the HD decoding you want. You want to add $60 to the cost of the board? Then add our profit margins. It will not sell.

It is therefore NOT cost effective, and products like this are confined to cost-driven markets. We would be stupid to create a product around any existing technology - certainly not an Efika 2 - that tried to compete as there is already exactly the box you want, already on the market.

I can think of TWO chips still in development (you won't see them until end of 2009, maybe 2010) which meet these needs and we are actively investigating these.

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Matt Sealey

LOL Neko , you just never "GET IT" do you, you never did and thats the problem.....you really should try actually reading the provided URLs instead of assuming as you always do, if the point doesnt match your assumptions at the time....

youre way behind the times, go search, and read up on the latest QL305 etc....

"Popcorn Hour A-100 doesn't come with wireless or a built-in hard disk"

true, so make your PCB(s) do it better, provide the generic cheap 11n, the RTL 1gig ethernet, and the SATA 8 port raid on your top of the line model... and let the end user people populate with their own HDs as required....

your being asked to provide something no one else does at this moment in time, thats the point...and how you make your long term profits, if not you, then some x86 vendor will soon enough, and you loose your potential profit advantage when that happens.....and it will, or somone makes a cheap 3rd party USB HD AVC USB key Encoder/Decoder from one of the existing ASIC soon enough once they catch on to the demand as analogue terns off around the world and digital becomes generic everywere, you can then advocate that 3rd party AVC device as your excuse for not providing it onboard any/all future genesi PCB then i suppose... as your not so unique HD AVC selling point :roll:

what does any one care about the BOM IF PEOPLES ARE READY TO PAY THAT Retail PRICE.....

people want the options , and now that the x86 is catching up , people are now buying these devices as they can be made to do what they what them to do....once that 3rd party AVC HD Encoder gets made and sold for the mass markets to come.

you have pissed and farted about for so long now, that you totally missed the fact the likes of Qpixel and their latest QL300 Family low priced ASIC now does this H@L4.1 upto full HD (1920x1080) even though i make it perfectly clear to the reader.

"The QL303 and QL305 will be available in July, 2008. The 10K quantity pricing will be $20 and $24 for QL303 and QL305, respectively."
and THAT IS ENCODING upto full HD 1920x1080 at HIGH level 4.1, so, so much for your "You would be lucky to get an AVC decoder chip for less than $60." wrong assumption.

and anyone with any business sense, that is actually FIRST TO MARKET with this real, and wanted realtime H@L4.1 upto full AVC HD 1920x1080 encoding/decoding will shorly be able to shift at least 10K+ of goods before the vultures decend on your new world market.

again you took my long time advice, and what i keep telling you, and you said it again yourself.... taking the credit "the only solution right now is to put on a generic SoC like the MPC5200B or something similar" , and "Popcorn Hour A-100 doesn't come with wireless or a built-in hard disk."..... etc.

its staring you in the face, theres NOTHING on the end user market right NOW that CAN realtime encode to AVC/H.264 to HD 1920x1080 , SO BE THE FIRST TO PROVIDE IT and make a killing....
people do already pay the Popcorn Hour price, because its the only retail thing that does the Decodeing in a reasonable all in one self contained PCB way, NOTHING does the matching HD Encodeing right now, even thought the AVC SOC/ASIC/FPGA has existed for a very long time, since at least 2004/5 infact.....

your BOM is way off, and your apparently only considering popular ASIC SOC, never FPGA, , at least your admitting now, your finally looking at some options at long last, looking, doesnt give end users something to actually buy OC, and thats the whole point.

as it happens the BOM is infact lower than you make out, as Qpixel have already got their older kit into the likes of mass market Buffalo, Inc devices and are already well known for "In addition, compatibility with the Sony PSP and Apple iPod has been a big hit with our customers."

http://www.eeproductcenter.com/analog/b ... =196900285

bottom line, you already admit theres several cheap and chearful FPGA and ASIC AVC H@L4.1 endoding options available right now you could use, with any CPU and sundry chipset you happen to choose, the BOM is infact quite a bit lower than you imply, and most of all, you assume without even realisicly pricing the current options available and asking the question, your happy to assume people wont pay a reasonable price for a better "Popcorn Hour" that finally provides realtime HD encoding for any No. of market sectors, be it mobile, static LAN, industial, or any other segment we all know exists out there for a self contained low power Encoding/Decoding AVC/H.264 device come NAS, come automotive widget etc ,etc....

the BOM is secondary IF PEOPLE Will Pay the price to get something they can NOT get right now...

i see you added a little more since i replyed, you keep forgetting to mention the average off the shelf FPGA,and ASIC, they ARE infact made to easily interface with other chips OC, and if there were a problem, your highly payed inhouse or external HW/PCB techs are OC able to find the practical ways to interface these off the shelf available FPGA/ASIC if the vendor has been lacking providing Errata free PCIE etc interfacing..... or why are you paying them!

I did my research already.
If you did your research you'll note that while the QL305 is $24, this is the value in quantities of 10000 (which is a lot of chips), which does NOT include the memory (which is needed for HD decoding), and is only PCI Express. To bridge it to any of the generic chips we'd want to use would need a PCI Express bridge chip - for the Efika, totalling all this, brings the cost to about $60 at the top end, not including the design work and layout of the extra memory on the board. Mobile DDR is expensive, and we could not share the cost of buying it with the rest of the board (for instance the RAM connected to the processor). PCIe bridges are expensive.

It also includes a 266MHz ARM processor - this is totally redundant next to the PowerPC or generic ARM CPU on the board for running other, more powerful applications. It also includes an audio processor which doesn't decode half the formats in use today, a USB controller which doesn't look accessible at all from the PCIe side, and plenty of other peripheral functions which just add to the complexity of the system.

One of the basic tenets of designing a media box is that it must be somehow upgradable to new codec formats and encryption formats as and when they arise; otherwise you get the problem with unnetworked Blu-Ray players, or the ones that only came with one decoder and no PiP functionality, where they cannot play some of the content on new disks.

I do not see that being done with a dedicated, single hardware decoder like the QL305. It doesn't do MPEG2 or any other video codec - standard DVDs and even some Blu-Ray discs would have to be decoded by the CPU. At this point your HD decoder becomes a fancy bundle of nothing. It doesn't even do 1080p if you want to use it as a PVR chip.
And more expensive as a result.
An "Efika2" board with those features would cost more than a Popcorn Hour A-100 WITH wireless and disk included. SATA 8-port RAID and gigabit ethernet and even cheap 11n will double the cost of any board we design around simply a decent SoC of the capabilities you'd want.
popper, you're talking nonsense just like you usually do. Put up that attitude again and I will just ban you outright as you're not contributing to the discussion, just ranting about your NEED for some box which does AVC/H.264 decoding. Other people will NOT pay the price for a media box of this complexity. Most people do not want a media box of this complexity - this is self-evident from the fact that the Roku Netflix box is $99.

If you need it that badly, go buy a Linksys Media Hub. There are plenty of products on the market, none of which Genesi - at this late stage at least - could possibly compete with on a cost-effective level. We could outclass every system you think of, but we would not sell a single machine because most consumers want the cheapest thing they can get, and the system YOU want, is not that system.

That's the end of it. Unless you want to fork over a million Euro for development, that is?

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Matt Sealey

As it seems the OS4 folks have discovered the Limebook now. At least they announced a netbook for OS4 which cannot be anything else than a Limebook.
A few years ago this would probably have worked out - just as Genesi was trying back then. But today - a 400MHz e300 netbook for 300-500 US$, well...
But all in all I think it is rather funny to see Amiga coming somehow across the "Efika project".