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Fwd: [svlug-announce] SVLUG May 2nd Meeting: Panel of Speakers on Comparitive Operating Systems

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "mark weisler"
Date: Apr 29, 2012 9:47 AM
Subject: [svlug-announce] SVLUG May 2nd Meeting: Panel of Speakers on Comparitive Operating Systems
To: <svlug-announce@lists.svlug.org>
WHEN:
  Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
  7:00pm-9:00pm
MAIN PRESENTATION
 TOPIC: Comparing Current Open Source Unix Systems
  Snacks and beverages at this meeting will be provided by ValueHost.
 PRESENTED BY:
   A Distinguished Panel of  Speakers
 TOPIC SUMMARY:
   The panel will discuss the main current open source Unix systems including Linux, BSD, illumos, SmartOS, Plan 9,
   and possibly others. Attendees will learn more about the energy and ideas behind these operating systems
   as well as their future direction.
 ABOUT THE PRESENTERS: 
   Our panel includes Kevin Dankwardt of K Computing representing Linux; Josh Paetzel, Director of IT at IxSystems, Inc.
   for FreeBSD; Bryan Cantrill will be talking about the successor to OpenSolaris, illumos, and Joyent's own distro, SmartOS;
   Charles Forsyth, Technical Director and Co-Founder at Vita Nuova for Plan 9; and possibly others.
   Check out our flyer (340 KB PDF).
   Rick Moen, long-time volunteer to SVLUG and veteran system administrator, will be our moderator.
 LOCATION:
   Symantec
   VCAFE Facility
   350 Ellis Street (near E. Middlefield Road)
   Mountain View, CA 94043
   Directions on how to get there are listed at:
   http://www.svlug.org/directions/veritas.php
   We've tried our very best for these directions to be accurate.
   If you have any improvements to make, please let SVLUG's volunteers know!
   webmaster at svlug.org
 POST-MEETING GATHERING:
  If you just can't get enough, a smaller group usually goes to a local
  restaurant/diner after the meeting:  Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi, Too,
  939 West El Camino Real between Shoreline and Castro, Mountain View.
We look forward to seeing you there!
_______________________________________________
svlug-announce mailing list
svlug-announce@lists.svlug.org
http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/svlug-announce

NeTV - Open Source Hardware HDMI overlaying & video compositing

NeTV enables overlaying your web content on existing HDMI video feeds, such as those from a BluRay player or cable box.

Inside, it's an Angstrom linux box running Webkit that features chroma-key video compositing. Out of the box, the reference firmware enables the overlay of Facebook and Twitter feeds, and SMSes from Android phones. The UI is written in Javascript/HTML, making it easy and fast to develop your custom application.

The system also features a convenient HTTP API which uses POST commands to issue events to the screen and control device behavior. This, combined with zeroconf discoverability via Bonjour, makes integrating NeTV with other networked devices (such as your smartphone or laptop) a snap.

FPGA geeks take note! NeTV does video compositing with an FPGA. The FPGA is managed using a convenient set of built-in command-line tools. You can modify the NeTV's video processing capability using Xilinx's free Webkit development environment. Or, you can repurpose the FPGA for entirely new functionality.


$119 from   http://www.adafruit.com/products/609

Summary of development environment options for NeTV:

• UI & application development in Javascript/HTML running on Webkit
• Remote control using iOS/Android reference apps via HTTP API
• Command line and kernel development via downloadable gcc environment, or via cloud-based "pre-built" Amazon EC2 environment.
• Verilog/VHDL hardware development on FPGA via Xilinx Webpack tools
• Solder-and-screws hardware development enabled via open source hardware stack

• Board Size: 94mm x 57mm
• 800 MHz Marvell PXA168 CPU (Marvell(R) Sheeva(TM) PJ-1 ARMv5TE-compliant with Intel WMMX2 extensions; 32kB/32kB L1 cache; 128kB L2 cache)
• 128 MB DDR2 DRAM, 16-bits x 800MT/s
• 1 GB microSD card pre-loaded with Angstrom-derived Linux distribution * User-accessible Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9 FPGA
• HDMI input and output ports, compatible with pixclock speeds of 95MHz
• Native resolution support for 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080p/24, 1080i/60
• Video overlay on HDCP encrypted feeds
• MicroUSB port for power and USB gadget support (attaches as ethernet device)
• Embedded 802.11b/g wifi card
• IR receiver
• IR extender port
• Pushbutton that triggers easy to use wifi-based firmware recovery mode
• Blue and green status LEDs
• Wifi configuration via IR remote and/or supporting Android app

Kit contains:

• NeTV PCB board and IR remote
• NeTV plastic enclosure kit: This is the plastic enclosure for an NeTV PCB. This lovely little box is made of two injection molded halves, a soft rubber anti-slip bottom, and a small baggie of screws. Assembly is simple and only takes a few minutes. Attach the NeTV using the short screws to the bottom plate. Remove the paper backing from the antenna and stick to the underside of the top piece, then fit the large top over it and snap in place. Screw in the 4 longer screws from the bottom. Finish by applying the rubber mat piece to the bottom to hide the screws. You're done!
• 5V 1A USB power supply
• MicroUSB cable
• HDMI cable

NeTV is the first offering from the brand new Sutajio Ko-Usagi, the Open Source Hardware company led by "bunnie" Huang. bunnie is best known as the author of "Hacking the XBox" and was the lead hardware engineer of the chumby internet alarm clock. So, it is no surprise that his latest invention, conceived in chumby industries' Singapore office and brought to you by Sutajio Ko-Usagi, is a fully open source HDTV peripheral which brings WiFi Internet and Android mobile interfacing to any HDMI TV!

NeTV is available here in bare board form with an optional DIY plastics kit! This package does not have the enclosure fully assembled with the PCB, you will have to snap the NeTV into its case, a 5-10 minute task. This package contains the NeTV assembled and tested board, IR remote (to control the NeTV from your couch), a Micro-USB cable (to connect/power the NeTV), a 5V 1A USB power supply (to power the board), and an HDMI cable (to connect it to the HDTV)


Need more? Here's a video with an overview: http://kosagi.com/netv/netv_demo.html

See also
Chumby’s new NeTV makes almost ‘any TV’ into an Internet connected device

Raspberry Pi Playing 1080p Video

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

From OS News:

Remember the Raspberry Pi ARM board we talked about last week? Well, while running Quake III is all fine and dandy and illustrates the board is capable of something, it didn't really tell me anything since I'd guess few people are going to use such a board for gaming. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Raspberry Pi team posted another demo today - running 1080p video for eight hours straight. The chip was still cool to the touch. And just to reiterate: $25.

The Raspberry Pi board ran a 1080p video (H264) over HDMI for eight hours straight, and the board was still cool to the touch. Playback shows no hiccups, which is pretty impressive considering the price of this board. Furthermore, the HDMI port on the Raspberry Pi is a full implementation - so it carries audio signals as well (although audio was turned off for the demo since it took place on a trade show floor).

The Quake III demo was interesting and all, but this? Heck, this only further cements my desire to get a few of these. At this price, they could be excellent extremely small media centers, or even a tiny server. Sadly, little information is available at this point about which media player the team was using; they say it's a custom one, but I would personally want to see it running, I don't know, MPlayer or something. Of course, I'd love to see it run Boxee (my media center of choice) even more, but alas, I will have to find that out for myself once the board becomes available.
I want one of these today rather than tomorrow!

Linux TV: Media subsystem workshop - Prague - Oct 23-25, 2011

http://linuxtv.org/events.php

This is part of the Kernel Summit 2011

Fwd: ppmtompeg - jpeg frames to MPEG

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Jesse Monroy"
Date: Jun 22, 2011 7:24 PM
Subject: Ppmtompeg - jpeg frames to MPEG
To: "John Sokol"
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/ppmtompeg.html
I'm installing netpbm and the installation program says that this can
be used as a server.

SECURITY REPORT:
This port has installed the following files which may act as network servers and may therefore pose a remote security risk to the system.

/usr/local/bin/ppmtompeg

If there are vulnerabilities in these programs there may be a securityrisk to the system. FreeBSD makes no guarantee about the security of ports included in the Ports Collection. Please type 'make deinstall'   to deinstall the port if this is a concern.

For more information, and contact details about the security status of this software, see the following webpage: http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/

Jesse

Low cost computer

Raspberry Pi Foundation

The first product is about the size of a USB key, and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low cost tablet. The expected price is $25 for a fully-configured system.

Provisional specification

• 700MHz ARM11
• 256MB of SDRAM
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
• Composite and HDMI video output
• USB 2.0
• SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
• General-purpose I/O
• Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)

AMD Open Sources Their Linux Video API

 
AMD has open sourced X-Video Bitstream Acceleration, their API by which they expose the Universal Video Decoder 2 GPU under Linux.

Check it out at developer.amd.com with links to the XvBA documentation / header file. They have also setup an XvBA SourceForge page, 

3dfx Voodoo Graphic Card Emulation Coming To DOSBox

From Slashdot:

"One of the forthcoming versions of the best PC-with-DOS emulator out there should include a very important architectural novelty, ie the software implementation of the historical Voodoo Graphics chipset created by 3dfx Interactive in the Nineties. "Kekko", the programmer working on the project with the aid of the DOSBox crew and the coding-capable VOGONS users, says that his aim is the complete and faithful emulation of SST-1, the first Voodoo chipset marketed in 1996 inside the first 3D graphics accelerated cards on the PC."

No Netflix streaming for Linux

I just assumed that like Youtube, because Netflix was using flash streaming, and it would work on Linux.
Correction: It's using Microsoft Silverlight see comment.

Well It doesn't work on linux.


Below is the message I get from Ubuntu Linux.

Instant Watching System Compatibility

Watching instantly on your computer

Our apologies — streaming is not supported for your operating system.

Note that your current Internet browser is fully compatible with adding titles to the Instant Queue for later watching on compatible devices.

Complete System Requirements

To watch instantly, you'll need a computer that meets the following minimum requirements:

• Windows
  
  
  
  • Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Vista or Windows 7
  • Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher; or Firefox 2 or higher
  • 1.2 GHz processor
  • 512 MB RAM
• Mac
  
  
  
  • An Intel-based Mac with OS 10.4.8 or later
  • Safari 3 or higher; or Firefox 2 or higher
  • 1 GB RAM
     
  Watch instantly home page 

Linux Video Editor Software

OpenShot Video Editor Reaches Version 1.0
"After only one year of development Jonathan Thomas has released version 1.0 of his impressive NLE for Linux. Based on the MLT Framework, OpenShot Video Editor has taken less time to reach this stage of development than any other Linux NLE. Dan Dennedy of Kino fame has also lent a helping hand ensuring that OpenShot has the stability and proven back-end that is needed in such a project."

-------

Excellent article: Top 5 Linux Video Editor Software

From the article.

Comparison Of Video Editing Software

Feature	Avidemux	Cinelerra	Kdenlive	Kino	LiVES
License	GPL	GPL	GPLv2	GPL	GPLv3+
Cost	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free
Paid Support	N	Y	N	N	N
RAM (min)	?	256M	256M	?	128M
Hard Disk (min)	?	?	1G	?	10G
CPU	?	500Mhz	600Mhz	?	800Mhz
High Definition Video Editing	?	Y	Y	?	Y
Non-destructive Editing	?	Y	Y	Y	Y
Full-screen Playback	?	Y	Y	Y	Y
Storyboard Mode	?	N	Y	Y	N
Video Tracks	Y	Y	Y	?	Y
Audio Tracks	Y	Y	Y	?	Y
Linear Timecode Display	?	Y	Y	?	Y
DVD Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
HD Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
Smart Phone Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
QuickTime Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
Windows Media Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
MPEG-4 Output	?	Y	Y	Y	Y
Web Output	?	Y	Y	N	N

Other Open Source Non-linear Video Editing Software For Linux Operating Systems

1. Blender - 3D animation suite (cross-platform) : Blender is a 3D graphics application. It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications, including games. Blender's features include advanced simulation tools such as rigid body, fluid, cloth and softbody dynamics, modifier based modeling tools, powerful character animation tools, a node based material and compositing system and Python for embedded scripting.
2. OpenShot Video Editor : OpenShot Video Editor is an open-source program that creates, modifies, and edits video files.
3. PiTiVi : PiTiVi is a program for video editing based on the GStreamer framework. It can - Capture and encode audio and video, with formats supported by GStreamer, split and trim video clips, split and trim audio, render projects in any format supported by the GStreamer framework etc.

Doom-Like Video Surveillance For Ports In Development

From Slashdot:

Doom-Like Video Surveillance For Ports In Development
"A research and development group down under is working to develop an advanced video surveillance system for ports around the world that uses video superimposed onto a 3D map. With 16-megapixel high-definition cameras on a distributed (cabled) network and a proprietary system written in a variety of languages (C++, Python, SQL, etc.), the group from NICTA is aiming to allow security teams at the Port of Brisbane — which is 110km long — to monitor shipping movements, cargo and people. By scrolling along a 3D map, the security teams can click on a location and then get a real-time video feed superimposed onto the map. Authorities from around the world with the right permissions can then access the same system. The main difference from regular surveillance systems is the ability to switch views without having to know camera numbers/locations and the one screen view."

Ask Slashdot: What Is the State of Linux Security DVR Software?

From Slashdot
StonyCreekBare writes "I am wondering what slashdotters have to offer on the idea of Linux based security systems, especially DVR software. I am aware of Zoneminder, but wonder what else is out there? Are there applications that will not only monitor video cameras, but motion sensors and contact closure alarms? What is state of the art in this area, and how do the various Linux platforms stack up in comparison to dedicated embedded solutions? Will these 'play nice' with other software, such as Asterisk, and Misterhouse? Can one server host three or four services applications of this nature, assuming CPU/memory/disk resources are sufficient?"

I also have a little written on this at dvr.videotechnology.com

Linux video applications

This isn't really much of an article as a link collection of Linux video apps worth checking out.

This isn't for CCTV or DVR use as much as consumer video.

• xine - started as a simple mpeg-2 audio and video decoder, but it since became a full-featured DVD and video media player.
• VLC media player / VideoLAN: a cross-platform video player and streaming solution. Video streaming over an ethernet network, and excellent standalone player.
• MPlayer - another good player, it is also very robust against damaged streams.
• movietime - still quite young, but it looks very promising !
• ffmpeg - a nice audio/video encoder and transcoder. ffmpeg.org
• Ogle - a good DVD player with menu support.
• TCVP - video and music player for unix.
• a52decX - a graphical interface for macintosh OS X.
• bd4go - another graphical interface for macintosh OS X.
• drip - a DVD to DIVX transcoder.
• OMS
• XMPS
• GStreamer - a framework for streaming media (A real beast)
  
• mpeglib - a video decoding library
• Avidemux
• ELDER
• ffdshow
• GordianKnot
• Handbrake: a multi-platform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter.
• LiVES
• MeGUI
• MEncoder
• pspVideo9
• RealAnime
• StaxRip
• TCVP

Hardware: DisplayLink Releases LGPL USB Graphics Code

from Slashdot:

"USB graphics should be coming to Linux soon: DisplayLink has released an LGPL library that talks to one of its graphics chips over a USB connection. DisplayLink aren't one of the big guys in graphics, but it's always nice to see a hardware manufacturer go the open source route. Now, when can I get one of these touchscreen MIMOs on my Linux HTPC?"

It's been a while

I am long overdue for some posts. In the mean time so much has happened.
Where to begin.
Lots of Embedded Linux stuff some is video and imaging related.
Blackfin and PXA270 X-Scale ARM processors, now I'm working on Altera NIOS II, struggling to get uC Linux on it and having to learn VHDL. I know once I am over that learning curve a whole new world of programmable Hardware will be open to me.

Did a V4L2 Driver for the SDI Master Board, but only got partial payment on that, I still own one of the developers $4400, that I will have to pay out of my pocket since the customer isn't paying up... Very upsetting for me.

SDI is cool though, I have utilities now to capture and decode these in Windows and Linux X win.
SDI is not compressed at all, looks like a raw captured YUYV video stream sampled at 13.5 Mhz just like CCIR 601. It's CCIR 656 and has sync markers embedded into it's video data stream, also audio is embedded into it. I plan to open source all of this if I don't get paid soon.

Did a bunch of USB stuff, that was a really learning experience, I really was avoiding USB for a long time. There is a video over USB standard that is out there now.

I have avoided commenting on the Net Neutrality issue, but there shouldn't be any regulations in my opinion.

checkout joost.com

I also put up a number of new sites. Jpeg Cameras , V4L2 Video for Linux 2

I have a currently working version of ECIP for RTP streams, worked great with 6MBPS streams into VLC (videolan).

I was stunned that Skype now uses my firewall bypass idea. See posts on Slashdot.

I wish people would stop asking me for Kodicom Diginet software. I do sell compatible board, but can't provide that software. But boards work great in Linux with ZoneAlarm and under FreeBSD with a little user space setup utility I did.


There's a lot more but that will be in the next post.

John