Thursday 24 December 2009

Just before I leave for Christmas ..

There should probably have been more of these updates, but we've been a bit busy here and so the blog hasn't been getting the attention it deserves. That'll hopefully be rectified soonish.

Anyway, the news in brief:

  • Advanced STB: we have a prototype OMAP3530-based STB design for which we've got boards back now, based on the ever-popular Beagleboard - SD only, but if I can fire up the DSP we should at least be able to decode SD versions of all the obscure codecs that no-one's ever heard of. Now all we have to do is write the firmware.. (and work out how the HD version will work).
  • USB IR widgets - would have been on sale except that someone's gone and bought all my spares. So: if you want one, do comment here or drop me a line and I'll get one sent out as soon as the next batch is ready. They'll hopefully be available via convenient web shop early in the New Year.
  • I've recently been doing quite a bit of work with GWT and Hadoop; both seem fairly sane and sensible. Something of an odd feeling to be back in a development regime not dominated by the cost of bugs - you start to realise that project planning does work for some people, somewhere.
  • Site of the day: http://www.h265.net . The idea of H.264 performance / 3 frankly scares me - especially in 3D. Time for those parallel-decode assurance flags people have been muttering about.
  • tibs has been doing some work on muddle, with the result that it's now faster, better, shinier, etc. Domains now work in a meaningful way and I've now churned out enough build trees that I'm pretty confident it's not going to fall over on anyone immediately.

Anyway, a good Christmas and New Year to everyone (anyone?) reading this; I'm off for a few days' relaxation (see, I told you I would one day..).