Bokks Linux Based AV Component

Here is an article about a new linux based AV stereo componenent. This one is from Bokks and it has a lot going for it: Plays your MP3s, MPEGs, VOBs, and soon Divx. Has standard audio and video ports, a sleek form factor, and what looks to be a sexxy interface. Its ethernet interface can take input from NFS or Samba, or the net. The only downside I see is that it has no DVD drive for built in ripping, and it has only a 20G drive. But at $400, this is pushing the line of reasonable for this type of device. Should be available in Feb.

Expandable hard drive?

[mjed]

Will they be putting out a bigger, optional hard drive? 20 gigs isn't too much when yuo consider the average file size of mp3s and mpegs.

It's about time

[sketerpot]

Hopefully in the future stereos will move away from plain uncompressed stuff and towards things like MP3s. It will be nice to be able to fit a huge bunch of music on a single CD, called "Peter's Favorite Music" in my case, that you can play on good audio hardware, not just old Sound Blaster speakers.

266 Mhz + DivX?

[ajna]

Will a 266 Mhz x86 processor be able to play DivX smoothly? I ask because my 333 Mhz laptop has trouble keeping audio sync...

First reasonable device

[amorsen]

This is the first reasonable digital audio/tv device I have seen. The ones before have been tied to proprietary formats, ridiculously expensive, or limited in capacity or quality. Of course the hard drive is too small at 20GB, but that can be remedied by putting a file server in another room (so you don't have to listen to the noise). It would have been nice to have a DVD drive, but again, it's just a matter of copying the DVD to the file server.

If they added a VideoLan Client [videolan.org], it would be practically perfect. VLC by itself probably doesn't support the hardware MPEG decoder, and the CPU isn't fast enough to do DVD decoding in software.

Re:not reasonable

[FallLine]

So that's about 288 USD parts, if we accept your quoted prices as being market. But you're ignoring ethernet and probably a few other things (e.g., wireless remote). Plus labor to assemble it and install software. Plus support. Plus software development for their UI. Plus profit (god forbid anyone take a little risk and expect that). Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Great

[rjkm]

I see that many people here are complaining about the capabilities and price of the box. For me it is just the kind of STB I was looking for.

Sure, you can build a PC with MPEG2 playback, networking etc. cheaper or for about the same price. But thats not what this device tries to replace, at least I would not buy it for doing this. When I saw the older TV Bokks (you can see it on their web page) I thought this would be great as an STB to stream files and live DVB streams from a server in the basement to other TVs here at home. But, although we have one of those at work to play with, I never saw it being offered for sale anywhere.

The old Bokks has a Geode chip as processor/graphics chip/etc. and a Sigma Designs EM8400 for decoding. I guess the new Bokks is based on the same design. They only added some hardware (like the hard drive) and changed the shape to a brick. The EM8400 is a nice decoder chip. We developed our own driver which is API compatible to our DVB drivers. So, I would not mind playing with one of those Bokkses. Also, if you consider the price of an EM8400 card (e.g. the Netstream 2000), the Bokks does not seem that expensive anymore.

Sure, I would also not mind if the Bokks were a little cheaper. With VAT (AFAIK 25% in Sweden which I guess I will have to pay when ordering from Germany) its over 1100 German Marks + shipping. Maybe they decide to also sell the old version for a lower price. I at least would be interested in it. On the other hand, the disk and nice brick shape makes the new system really portable. And I think the specs mention only 10W power usage. No noise, little heat, sounds good.

Now please everybody buy it so that the price goes down and I can get one :-)

I've got something better

[leereyno]

Imagine this.....

1) 1.2 Ghz athlon with 512 megs of memory

2) ATI all in wonder radeon that provides not only a TV tuner but svideo/composite A/V inputs and outputs and the ability to do audio/video capture at 720x384 at 30 fps on any of the inputs

3) Sound blaster Live platinum 5.1 for surround sound playback of DVD's etc.

4) four 100 gig hard drives on an IDE raid controller. Total capacity of 400 gigs

5) DVD-R burner, preferably SCSI

6) CD burner, preferably SCSI

7) It will be connected to the internet via a switched 100base-T network connected to a NAT gateway that is itself connected through DSL.

This is the system I'm building right now. Its purpose is much the same as the Bokks device. With it I will be able to play DVD's, vobs, mp3, avi's, mpegs, vcd, divx, etc all on my TV thanks to the all in wonder. Additionally I'll be able to do tivo style recording thanks to that all in wonder. I can rip all my DVD's, encode them to divx, and store them on the raid array or burn them to CD. Or I can just rip them and burn them back to DVD in regionless format with no macrovision. I've got friends overseas that might appreciate that.

By the time this Bokks device becomes available I'll have this system up and running. I haven't decided whether to use Linux or Windows2000 yet. Which one I use will greatly depend upon device support for the all in wonder and SB Live. We've got an HK A/V reciever with dolby surround sound support. If the SB Live drivers for linux support all the features, and the support for the All in wonder is there, then I'd rather use Linux. But if this is not the case I'll use windows instead.

Unfortunately this system is going to cost me a fair bit more than $400. I've already got the MB, CPU, and memory. All I'll need is a good case/PS, the hard drives, the video card, the sound card, and of course the SCSI adapter and burners. Total cost will be upwards of $2000 dollars US.

Lee