Cool gadget that allows you to stream video/audio to your TV
Runs linux, seems pretty hackable. More expensive than the LinksysWRT54G, but much more hacker friendly. And it plays movies!
Links
http://members.cox.net/movie_maker/prismiq/index.html Enthusiast clearinghouse page
http://www.prismiq.org/ Official support site - software, php board, etc.
http://robinsonhome.org/mod/ Media on Demand server by Mike Robinson
http://members.shaw.ca/pocketsolutions/ Server & Pocket PC Software
http://laronde.org/~brad/ Prismiq employee who did the Kernel - info on the toolchain he used
http://sourceforge.net/projects/modprismiq/ ModPrismiq effort on SourceForge
http://p097.ezboard.com/bprismiqunofficialforum Unofficial PRISMIQ product forum (New)
http://www.prismiq.org/prismiq/customization/encore_oss/ GPL code used by PRISMIQ
Hardware
- PCMCIA - Lots of wireless card support (802.11a/b/g)
- 10/100 network interface
- Audio L/R
- Composite Video
- SVideo
- Digital Audio (S/PDIF RCA jack, currently 2 ch. Stereo only)
- Hardware MPEG1/2 and MP3 decoding
- IR remote / keyboard
- 5VDC power supply, no fans
- 16MB flash / 64MB RAM
- Runs MIPS Linux 2.4.18
Notes
It requires a Windows or Linux "media server" process to play back media. This bit is still pretty beta. There's a script to auto-index your media if you're running the Linux server on Rob's site (see Links above).
You can also make it play back audio easily without a media server using /dev/dsp or /dev/mp3.
Hackery
So far, here are some nifty things I've gotten it to do:
Hardware MP3 decoding with wget. wget -O /dev/mp3 -q http://your.streamer.here:8000/ &
Get a root shell (from the keyboard only): Ctrl-Alt-Left arrow. Go back to the gui: Ctrl-Alt-Audio
Turn on telnet: mv /etc/rcS.d/K95inetd.sh /etc/rcS.d/S95inetd.sh and reboot
Hard code a media server to sidestep the multicast discovery process. On the Prismiq, killall psap. Then put something like this in /etc/discovered:
vod 10.15.6.1:554 100 ver:62 PRISMIQ screenserver 10.15.6.1:8080 100 ver:1 PRISMIQ
Total control over video and audio playback using the media agent process. Connect to localhost port 2253, then issue Media Agent commands
Get it running X (or some other GUI). It has framebuffer support (/dev/fb0), so a likely candidate is Microwindows. I nearly have this working, but the framebuffer uses an odd mode (FB_TYPE_PACKED_EVEN_ODD ?). With Microwindows running, nano-X will allow any X app to run on the Prismiq(!)
- Get it running HostAP. This is also very close, just one outstanding unresolved kernel symbol!
Build new firmware. Use mkfs.jffs2 to build a new root. Don't go over about 12MB. No need to install a boot loader, just boot from the rescue partition and use wflash http://server/my.new.firmware system.
Easy recovery from bad firmware. Cycle the power, and immediately hit ESC on the keyboard. Type rescue to boot from the tiny little rescue partition. Use wflash as above. It looks like you can also rebuild the flash directly from the BIOS prompt, but I haven't tried to do that yet.
Q: what parameters did you use to build a new kernel? i'm trying to get my box up to 2.24.25, add more card support, and dump the results in sourceforge. See Unofficial forum above
NOTE: June 2004, LaRonde and PRISMIQ post the diff for getting Linux upgraded. see modprismiq.sourceforge.net For open source code see http://www.prismiq.org/prismiq/customization/encore_oss/
