A vendor of Linux-based IP set-top boxes (STBs) announced that it has sold its two millionth unit. Meanwhile, Amino's latest “AmiNet130M” model, which offers MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 in HD (1080i) resolution, has recently won two industry awards, says the company.

(Click for larger view of the AmiNet130M)

U.K.-based Amino launched its first AmiNet STB box in 2002, says the company, with its AmiNet100 IP STB. It now claims to have sold two million of its various Linux-based AmiNet boxes. The appliances bring Internet TV to consumer TVs, and deliver on-demand video and IPTV to hotel guests, hospice residents, and Internet video service subscribers. Based on low-power ARM-based SoCs and even standalone TI DSPs (digital signal processors) at the lower end, the company's AmiNet boxes have long used Opera browsers as an integral component of the user interface. Amino also licenses its Linux-based IPTV software stack to other hardware manufacturers under the “IntAct” brand, together with Opera, which customers can sub-license directly from Amino.

AmiNet130M (rear view)

Since the last time LinuxDevices checked in on Amino, the company has released several new AmiNet designs, including last year's AmiNet130M, which is billed as the smallest HD STB on the market. Measuring 1.4 high by about 4.5 inches square, the one-piece aluminum design is easy to manufacture and fast to dissipate heat, says Amino.

In December, Amino announced that the AmiNet130M won a “Good Design” award for 2008 from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum. At the industry TelcoTV show in the US in November, the STB won the “Best in Show” and “Best Customer Premise Equipment” awards, says the company.

Amino did not disclose the processor used by the AmiNet130M, but it does offer the following specifications and features for its latest IP STB:

• Undisclosed 300 MIPs processor (probably ARM-based) with dedicated codec support
• 192MB SDRAM
• Interface to 10/100BaseT Ethernet
• USB 2.0 port
• Digital HD output via HDMI with HDCP
• MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 up to [email protected], resolutions up to 720p and 1080i
• MPEG-2 up to [email protected], resolutions up to 720p and 1080i
• HD graphics (1280×720)
• Stereo audio and Dolby 5.1 surround via Optical S/P-DIF and HDMI
• Picture in graphics support with scaling, positioning, and Alpha blending
• Teletext pass through, closed captioning, subtitling
• 4:3 and 16:9 video stream aspect ratios
• 50Hz PAL and 60Hz NTSC TV Output
• 16:9 video stream on a 4:3 TV with cropping/letterbox
• IR remote control
• Protocols supported: VoD (RTSP video session control); Multicast (IGMP)
• Key-protected, scalable multicast software uploading of flash memory based software
• HTML 4 browser with JavaScript
• Optional IR keyboard
• 1.4 by 4.5 inches (114 x 102 x 35mm)
• Linux operating system

Stated Amino CEO Andrew Burke, “The AmiNET130M allows providers to future-proof their services and can deliver a full range of HD services including gaming, Video-on-Demand and broadcast — with the innovative option to plug in a similarly discrete digital video recorder (DVR) device.”

Availability

The AmiNet300M is shipping now, says the company. More information may be found here.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.