NeTV2 - Open Video Development Board

SKU: ADA4248 Brand: Adafruit

Retired Product

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This product has been retired. It is no longer available, but this page has been kept for reference.

For cutting edge HDMI development, the NeTV2 is the only tool that lets you overlay your own data on top of HDMI, even encrypted streams! The NeTV2 is the next generation after the original NeTV Adafruit have been stocking for a while. This upgaded version is an add-on board for a Raspberry Pi computer, so you get the benefit of a Linux runtime for development with the power of FPGA video encoding.

NeTV2 is the first offering from the brand new Alphamax, 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 Alphamax's office in South Korea, is a fully open source HDTV peripheral which brings WiFi Internet and Android mobile interfacing to any HDMI TV!

The NeTV2 design targets two major use scenarios, referred to as “NeTV classic” mode (video overlays with encryption) and “libre” mode (deep video processing, but limited to unencrypted feeds due to Section 1201).

NeTV2 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; the sky's the limit!

Summary of development environment options for NeTV2:

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

Get your NeTV2 on with this full pack that includes everything you need to start! This complete kit comes fully assembled and contains:

NeTV2 PCB Dev board
Raspberry Pi 3 B+
NeTV2 plastic enclosure kit: This is the plastic enclosure for a NeTV PCB. Designed with extra empty space with an array of M2.5 mounting bosses on a 30mm grid. These let you add an extra board or component to the system without having to redesign the entire case.
12V 1A wall plug power supply

Technical Details

FPGA: Xilinx XC7A35T-2FGG484
On-board RAM: 512 MBytes, 32-bit wide DDR3-800
Video Ports: 2 x HDMI type A inputs, 1 x HDMI type A output, 1 x HDMI type D output. One input/output pair configured for in-line ‘NeTV mode’ video filtering.
Max Video Bandwidth: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
Developer I/O: PCI-express 2.0 x4 with “hax” GPIO extensions on optional/unused pins, 100Base-T ethernet, micro-USB, microSD, JTAG
Power: Either 12 VDC via barrel jack, or 12 VDC via PCI-express; 10 W max operating power
SBC: Optional Raspberry Pi 3B+ for seamless JTAG configuration and overlay video generation
HDL: Optimized for migen/LiteX Python-based hardware description language
Dimensions: 160 mm x 120 mm x 51 mm (optional plastic case outer dimensions)
Hobbyists Guide to FPGAs

Please note that this is not a chumby device, and as such it will not support integration with the chumby network services (besides, chumby network apps are Flash and NeTV uses Javascript/HTML). Instead, apps will be pre-loaded on the device as reference code, or you can fetch the source code for over a dozen reference applications from Git directly.

For product support, please go to https://reddit.com/r/netv2 or contact [email protected] for issues relating to hardware malfunction or warrantability.

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