[gcote]

Hi Guys. I'm relatively new to the XBMC world and only because we developed our own small form factor multimedia PC.

We are currently in the prototype stage before our availability of May/June of this year. I was hoping to get some feedback and constructive criticism regarding our design and the offerings we will be providing. We still have time to make changes to our design without affecting our delivery timetable so any input would be greatly appreciated. I've noticed a lot of XBMC users are inclined to build their own HTPC's so who better to ask advice?

Specifications:

CPU - AMD 64-Bit x86 Quad Cores @ 2.4Ghz
CACHE - 32KByte I/D per Core; 2MByte Shared L2
FPU - IEEE 754 Compliant Single/Double Precision 2D/3D
GPU - Radeon HD8000 @ 655Mhz w/800Mhz Turbo Boost supporting OpenGL 4.2 and OpenCL 1.2
SDRAM - 64-Bit Wide DDR3-1600 SODIMM up to 16MByte
STORAGE - 2.5” HDD supports 7mm and 9.5mm Laptop Drives for up to 2TByte. M.2/NGFF Supports Latest Generation40/80mm Cards up to 480MByte.
VIDEO DECODE - UVD Engine 4.2 supporting: Direct X11.1; Dual HD Video Decode (MPEG-2, H.264, WMV, VC-1, Blu-ray 3D); Dual 10180p HD Streaming
VIDEO ENCODE - VCE 2.0 Supporting H.264 DUAL HDMI - Two standard HDMI Type-A Connecters Supporting Up to 4K x 2K (Quad-HD) Resolution
SECURITY - Secure Boot, SHA, AES, RSA, etc
USB - Two 5Gbit USB 3.0 and Two 480Mbit USB 2.0 Ports each with [email protected] for Phone Charging, Blu- Ray Drive, Cell Modem, etc
802.11AC WiFi - Dual Antennas for widest coverage and actual throughput up to 800Mb/sec
WIRED ETHERNET - Shielded RJ45 with Integrated Magnetics Supporting 10/100/1000Mb/sec Speeds
AUDIO I/O - 80mw Stereo Headphone Amplifier Output and Stereo Line in.
CONSUMER INFRARED - CIR Receiver Compatible with most Remote Controls
ECO-FRIENDLY - Low Power Consumption, Typical 15W, Maximum 25W Operation, <2W Idle Ultra-Compact Size - 152.4mm x 110mm x 38mm (6.00" x 4.33" x 1.50") Fanless, Extruded Aluminum Enclosure. Smaller than a paperback book!

Our dedicated webpage is currently under construction so we are only visible on our Indiegogo campaign at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cerber.../x/6171500

I know it's a crowdfunding site, but I am in no way asking for contributions. I just want to show you what it will look like and the pricing structure compared to other mini PC's out there.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[RogerS]

Provided link doesn't seem to work

[gcote]

Updated the link and seems to be working now. Thanks for pointing it out.

[RogerS]

Nice pack.

Pro: Passively cooled. A lot of SFF systems have a small fan on CPU.

I would like to know how well HD-audio formats are now being supported by Linux for the AMD GPU. A good test might be to try OpenElec.

Interesting to see when it will become available in Europe and at what price.

[gcote]

Nice pack.

Pro: Passively cooled. A lot of SFF systems have a small fan on CPU.

I would like to know how well HD-audio formats are now being supported by Linux for the AMD GPU. A good test might be to try OpenElec.

Interesting to see when it will become available in Europe and at what price.

Thanks for the positive feedback. The unit will be available worldwide from our web site when the campaign is done.

Do you have some notion of what audio formats in particular you want us to test? What version of Linux and what player would
be a good starting point? We went and installed OpenElec 3.2.0 and it runs very nice, but we are not too familiar with it.

greg

[ViZZY]

Very interested in this! I really like how you even include XBMC pre-installed as an option. Only, and minor downside, is no E-sata but that isn't a deal breaker.

May I ask what AMD chipset is being used? That's the only info I found it odd I had to dig for and still couldn't turn up. Perhaps I'm blind.

Thanks for sharing, I actually searched these boards for "Cerberus" after stumbling upon your campaign and was very happy to see you posting here. Wishing you guys success!

[gcote]

The CPU is the AMD Kabini Family or G Series SoC. It uses fully x86 compliant cores called Jaguar.
Some public documents are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Acceler...ssing_Unit. And
here: http://www.amd.com/us/PRODUCTS/EMBEDDED/...eries.aspx. If you
register there is a site that has all the technical data here: http://wwwd.amd.com/amd/devsite.nsf/login?openform
Note that this is usually for folks who are developing with the chip, but sometimes individual uses are allowed
if they are contributors to the community. Believe me I wish they just made all the docs available to all. That's
what we keep telling them.

Thank you very much for the interest and I hope this answers your questions. We greatly appreciate all the
feedback from the community. :-)

greg

[nickr]

What codecs besides h264 are supported?

[gcote]

What codecs besides h264 are supported?

The HW video decoder built into the G Series SoC is called UVD4.2. It supports the following formats:

H.264, MPEG-4 AVC, VC-1, WMV bitstream
MPEG-2 IDCT + MotionComp.
MPEG -2, MPEG-4 part 2, DivX, xVid bitstream
MVC for Blu-ray Stereo 3D

In addition there is a video encoder, VCE that supports H.264 encode.

Hope this helps!

greg

[Temujin]

Will it handle DTS, DTS-MA, Dolby TRUE HD audio?

[nickr]

Thanks for the response. I suppose we should ask about deinterlacing too.

[fritsch]

OpenELEC 3.2 use abondonned XVBA code, which was thrown away out of the window by its developers cause of constant "non support" by AMD closed source department togehter with really shitty fglrx blobs.

With OpenELEC 4.0 vdpau acceleration (like known from nvidia) will be used.

What works:
mpeg-2, mpeg-4, vc1 advanced only, h264
Max video size: 2048x1152 -> there is now 4K decoding support as of now, whereas intel and nvidia already have that.

The bitstream codecs for audio all work nicely, but(!) the drivers currently have a sync problem, as video clock and audio clock don't match - you loose 10 ms every now and then.

[gcote]

Thanks for the response. I suppose we should ask about deinterlacing too.

nickr - Sorry for my ignorance. What do you refer to with deinterlacing? We are mostly HW people here.

Thanks,
greg

[nickr]

You are developing a media pc and you don't know what deinterlacing means? Or whether your chipset is capable of doing it well?

Sheeesh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing

[tential]

My issues is the same as always with these things. You say you are going to use Kabini but then list a 2.4 Ghz quadcore processor.

Kabini doesn't clock that high.

I hate seeing contradicting specs when I look at a product to figure out what's inside.

Either way though, the main thing is pricing at the end of the day. If you aren't competitive on pricing it's pointless. You're going to have to compete with Baytrail HTPC type systems.

It seems like you don't have finalized specs though on your box. WIthout knowing the specs, I can't say what I think a good/reasonable price is. However, the Asus Chromebox is only $180. At that pricepoint you have a HEAVY competitor right there. This small HTPC market is very very cluttered.

A top of the line Android Stick is really what I've been looking for TBH. Something that is actually worth $100. With Gotham supporting Android better than ever I think Android Sticks really could make huge headway for XBMC as a cheap way to get XBMC to any HDTV.