[HH] NeTV: open source Google TV hardware?

[Tom Metro]

adafruit is selling NeTV, a $119 kit (you put the board into the
supplied plastic case - not sure why they bothered making it a "kit"),
that has hardware similar to a Google TV, which lets you pass HDMI
signals through it and overlay graphics.

It is open source hardware created by "the lead hardware engineer of the
chumby internet alarm clock."

http://www.adafruit.com/products/609

I'm not sure what CPU it uses. The HDMI overlay is accomplished with a
Xilinx 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; the sky's the limit!"

It runs "Angstrom linux...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."

Also has a WiFi radio and a cheesy IR remote.

Not clear if it is actually any good at video decoding, or if it only
has enough horsepower to show relatively static overlays. No mention of
video decompression hardware.

Hmmm...if it ran XBMC or Android it would be more interesting.

I think I'd rather start with a platform capable of being an HD
streaming video player and run open enough software that permits adding
custom overlay data, rather than bother with a device dedicated to
displaying custom overlay data.

 -Tom