[MeeGo-community] MeeGo TV : Is it the right time to be serious about it ?

[Dominig ar Foll]

Hello,

We all know that the page on MeeGo web site for connected TV is, as I
write this email, only a place holder.
http://meego.com/devices/connected-tv

You also already knows that, Telecom Italia has launched on December 1st
2010, the first TV (actually an STB) MeeGo based product.
Unfortunately during the Dublin MeeGo conference the information could
not yet be made public and I had to keep silent on it.

In the mean time Telecom Italia has released a video on YouTube which
demonstrates the complete feature set of the solution and a web page. It
does also present a port done on Smart TV and Smart Phone (not MeeGo
based). As you would expect, the speech is in Italian but the images are
still nice to see :-)
http://wn.com/Il_nuovo_Cubovision_di_Telecom_Italia__presentazione
http://world.cubovision.it/servizi/cubo/

The solution is based on the concept that I presented during the
conference in Dublin except the UI which is proprietary. In Dublin,for
the demos, we used an xbmc UI adapted to MeeGo.
http://conference2010.meego.com/session/meego-tv-delivering-breakthrough-internet-tv-solutions

More on open source multimedia framework (Enna and xbmc) for MeeGo can
be found here : http://www.madeo.co.uk/
http://world.cubovision.it/servizi/cubo/

>From January 1st 2011, I will have been transferred from my position of
CTO at Amino Communications (Cambridge, UK) to the Open Source
Technology Centre from Intel (I will be located in Brittany, France).
This means that I will have far more time to dedicate on MeeGo and in
particular in MeeGo TV and Multimedia application on MeeGo.

So I just want to to shout : STOP TALKING, LETS DO IT !!

Yesterday, I posted an update on the *Bug 9913*
<http://bugs.meego.com/show_bug.cgi?id=9913> "No release or Working
Group for Connected TV"
http://bugs.meego.com/show_bug.cgi?id=9913
which summarised what I think needs to be done on MeeGo to enable TV.

What is Needed ?
===========

1) Getting Ready
 - define the target platforms for the reference implementations. Intel CE4100
is a good candidate as it has a working base (Telecom Italia project). But Atom+Ion or Atom+CrystalHD
might be interesting as well (easier platform to access for independent developers). AMD and ARM may want to push something not Atom based.
 - definition of compliant Kernel configuration (unified kernel is out of reach
in TV). This seems already started by other MeeGo groups.
 - implement a solution to create an OBS images including non open source
drivers. All TV SoC have some closed drivers and do not display any graphic
without :-(

2) Required TV features
 - Remote control support framework (IR, Gyro, Gesture)
 - Unified Media player supporting Live TV and Protected content as well as
local and Web contents (I could share a proposition as soon as the group starts).
 - Gstreamer drivers for DVB/ATSC Tuner for reference platforms (learning from Telecom Italia will be valuable).
 - EPG and Asset registry and associated find functions (Re-use from xbmc pvr
extensions should be possible).

3) Add-on
 - 3 Meters UI (each customer want to rebuild their own)
 - Sub title and closed captions
 - PVR, Pause live TV
 - unmanned upgrade and backup

4) Nice to have
 - remote management
 - emergency alert services

00) Show stopper for any real deployment
 - security sub system (well advanced with MeeGo 1.2 but need a few tweaks, I could share a requirement spec)
 - integration of the HW chain of trust from the SoC to MeeGo.

I would be interested to know :
 - what is the feeling of the MeeGo community on this topic ?
 - do we want to do it ?

HOW COULD WE START
==================

a) Dedicated group for Connected TV or not.
 I think that a dedicated TV group would be more efficient but I might be wrong.
 We need to deal immediately with the issue that all code in TV will never be 100% open source as it might upset some Community members.

b) Get public 
  Creation of the TV pages in the Wiki.
  Which Mailing list
  Forum entry
  Which first industry conference to speak (Anga Kable in Germany May 2011 would be my guess)
  When to present a Roadmap
  
c) domain definition. 
  Limited: TV and STB only maybe  include media centre 
  Generic: All TV apps in all MeeGo devices.

Thanks to let me know your feeling.

-- 

Dominig ar Foll
Senior Architect