Gamma is a term we coined to refer to production white box hardware with early software (alpha level integration in this case). See the Neuros Gamma Wiki Page

Well, this combines a HW and SW comparison. Wrt to HW, a modded second hand X Box is an unbeatable value for standard def, period. It was subsidized HW and can't be beat (particuliarly at $100). If you can get past the modding headaches and SD limitations, you won't find a better value. In fact, if you need component and composite connectors, the LINK doesn't support that at all.

That being said, the LINK is many years newer hardware. The processor is 2.8 GHz 64 bit v Xbox's 733 MHz (IIRC) etc. and the LINK has HDMI, HD GPU, etc.

Wrt to SW, the LINK is evolving from its starting point of basically stock Ubuntu with a collection of apps (including XBMC and Boxee) to a more seamless, integrated experience. The app software is all GPL, so parts of many apps will be integrated over time, there is still lots of experimentation ongoing (and getting community input during this period is precisely why we launched to users early)

Joe (from Neuros)

exactly right, and I believe there's a place in the middle. A device with comprehensive playback capabilities (both downloaded content and web video) that operates like a piece of electronics. That's the vision, as many, including the reviewer point out, we're not there yet. We started from the PC side and are evolving to be more electronics like, both software and eventually more stripped down hardware. Our focus since release (and until production- remember this is a gamma product) will be on enhancing the UI for couch use. And, yes it will be a period of experimentation, XBMC, Boxee, Miro all work on the box and are in use by various members of the community. We (neuros) feel this is the sweet spot. No, it's not as cheap (or small) as a straight AppleTV (or the like), and the web interface isn't as couch friendly in the navigation. but its more open, expandable, free standing and comprehensive in terms of access to content and we are working on the shortcomings.

At this point, to a certain extent, you can really view this as a home built effort. It's not home built in the sense you have complete access to all the components, but honestly if there's something you want to customize about it, you can literally buy the parts yourself, or we'll sell you a sub assembly and we've listed all the components line by line on the wiki.

The point is that there are economies of scale of a community working in collaboration directly with the manufacturer on a focused set of hardware. A good example of this is ATI, as mentioned elsewhere, we are working directly with ATI as a customer to solve the issues with the system. I think it stands to reason that we have more influence with ATI as a group than as individual hackers, and in fact you will find ATI/AMD engineers participating directly in our community.

As anyone that's put together one of these systems knows, there are tons of minor details that need to be worked out, and it's vastly more efficient if we join forces on a focused application on a defined hardware platform. That's why we've made sure that engineers at Boxee, XBMC, Miro, etc all have sample hardware.

As mentioned elsewhere the hardware does have direct h264 acceleration and is 1080p capable, athough this has not been full implemented in Linux yet.

the ATI hardware is capable, and believe me, I share the frustration wrt ATI. But understand that we came, like most here, biased against ATI at the outset (and we have ulterior motive or connection with ATI). Despite that, they were able to convince us, both with the offers of support for the project as well as current features that they were the right vendor for this device. This is something we continue to evaluate, but if you do the detailed analysis, there are issues with Linux support for both ATI and nVidia, and either vendor must evolve their Linux performance. The good news is that the playing field for Linux, unlike the desktop, is *vastly * more level on the set-top box side than it is on the desktop. More accurately, slanted to Linux's favor, so I believe this will drive a lot of effort. Obviously the success or failure of this project and those like it will be important too.

the ATI interface is evolving, we (Neuros) is working with them directly to evolve the Linux drivers (both proprietary and open). Today it doesn't yet have the vdpau type interface.

However, ATI specs that this is a full bluray capable card, so it's in the software interfaces. Without that we're currently at the cusp of 1080p (24 fps like the apple.com trailers) but there's clearly improvements coming

I realize that ATI doesn't have the best FOSS reputation, but when we looked at nVidia, ATI had some advantages, particularly on the HDMI side (which nVidia doesn't well support yet) as well as a lot of support for this project, which is obviously important.

you got it exactly right, and in fact, traditionally we've done all embedded HW, and we could produce a proprietary solution in quantity of 100 if we wanted. It's all about the benefit of the above.

And let me expand upon the above and explain why x86 makes fundamental sense for a device like this (at least for the forseeable future). What you outline above portays it from our (the mfg's perspective) but let's look at it from the user's perspective, because that's where it really comes alive.

When you say "special agreements," let's think about the ramifications for you as a user. Let's also recognize that it's not just agreements, it's technical integration effort too. So all of a sudden, a new Hulu launches tomorrow, and it's virtually guaranteed that it will, right. Well, first off no embedded device yet supports flash 10, so you are out there. Eventually these device will support flash 10, but how well, flash 10 that includes HD video, because if not, well again, you might be left in the cold. What if its some other plug-in (which often is it) well, then, in many cases, the integration hasn't even started.

The net effect is that you find yourself in the current situation. It's great that there's a $100 box that plays youtube and netflix, but what about nbc.com? what about youtube HD? what about stumbleupon video or dig video, etc etc. Sure, in theory they can all ultimately support all these content provides but a) that doesn't do you much good today and b)how many new content providers will have appeared by then?

Until there is broad agreement on a standard for video (and not just playback but browsing and navigation, etc) then x86 as flawed and expensive as it is is only choice for comprehensive playback.

Another note, at this point, it's not enough to just have x86, you need a powerful CPU. Again, this limitation will surely go away eventually, but for the time being, there is sadly lots of software that runs only on the CPU. Boxee did a great job of porting to the AppleTV, but ask them about the limitations of the ~1 GHz x86 CPU, which prevented Hulu HD from playing, etc.

Don't get me wrong, this stuff will change eventually, and Neuros will be delighted to go back to embedded to embrace it will smaller, cheaper hardware, but for now, the lack of a set of standards forced us to a PC architecture to provide comprehensive access to content.

I'm from Neuros for those that don't already know, I'll answer the x86 v embedded elsewhere. Regarding economies of scale, let's look at it a different way. As many of you know, Neuros history is in embedded systems from scratch. This is our first x86 project as well as the first using off the shelf components. We actually did it because of the economies of scale advantage. The PC industry has such an established supply chain, with such huge volumes that its creates a huge advantage. You have to live with x86 plusses and minuses, which, again I'll address separately. But if you favor x86, which obviously we do for this currently. Sticking with off the shelf makes sense (at least to start). As posted elsewhere, this MB *at retail* is $80 that's really quiet a value for that piece of hardware. Look at the GPU, and the host of peripherals and expansion. Firewire, tons of USB, s/pdif, 7.1 audio, HDMI, DVI, VGA, PCI, SATA, etc. Sure, much of that is worthless for a mainstream wal-mart product, but not for a Gamma launch to folks that want to experiment and play around. Likewise with the case, it's nice having size for a internal 3.5" drive, and/or an optical drive. The case could be smaller certainly, but today, it's the size of a TiVo, so it's not an unreasonable compromise IMHO. Of course, as the product matures, we'll cut out many peripherals, and put it in a smaller case, certainly there will be cost savings, but some not immaterial tradeoffs. It wouldn't surprise me if we continued to sell this unit along side it. I suspect many would continue to prefer it. Best guess is that the savings will be on the order of $50 for some of the customization above. Important no doubt, but not everyone would want those tradeoffs, particularly at a stage where we're specifically targeting hackers.

don't forget you've got a wifi card, wireless keyboard (and you want one with an integrated trackball of touchpad) flash drive and, as you mention, case.

I have a kind of unique perspective on this, we're actually building a discless Ubuntu TVPC box for mass production and its clear that getting it to "just work" at least in all situations does take some work. We use a new chipset (AMD 780g) because it supports audio over HDMI (note that many of the comments on here quietly note that they are using DVI with analog audio of some kind) nVidia's drivers still don't support this. We're actually working directly with ATI to make sure that the graphics chipset resumes properly from sleep, that it auto-senses the display properly, etc. For many on here, those kind of hiccups are no big deal, but when it comes to the WAF or making a real mainstream product, there is a lot of little details that need fixing. Take my word, there is a lot of tweaking needed to truly have something "just work" and bear in mind that we're dealing with production runs of perfectly identical hardware, so the problem goes up dramatically if you are piecing together a variety of components in a DIY way, although I suppose you have more options of tweaking during install than we have for a product sold to consumers at retail.

Boxee is basically three things: 1. XBMC-strong playback of downloaded content, rich media browsing, automatic population of cover art, etc 2. "remote controlled" internet tv- it adds plug-ins that XBMC didn't have (some have apparently since been backported) for viewing hulu in an "up down left right" interface that eliminates the need for a mouse. 3. social features- see what your friends are watching, twitter what you are watching, share, etc. I don't know plex, but neither XBMC nor Boxee is DVR software, for that you want mythtv or something like that. Myth has a programming guide built (have to signup for the service though) works with the HD homerun, etc. No reason you can't run both on one box, that's what we do on the Neuros LINK (which is essentially a discless TVPC). It's not as seamless as a single app that does everything, but its a good solution today since there isn't a single app that does all that well yet.

The Neuros LINK is essentially a $299 thin TVPC,discless (runs off flash storage) designed for playback (including running Boxee) comes with ubuntu 8.10, wifi, already tweaked and running with wireless controller, expandable with PCI, SATA, etc. http://www.neurostechnology.com/neuros-link

One big reason many manufacturers don't embrace openness is that they want devices that are tied to services or media. Apple has become the #1 music seller in the US by having iPods tied to iTunes and with the music store being pushed front and center to iPod owners. I doubt Apple would be enthusiastic about opening the iPod/iPhone so that Amazon's MP3 store can be as tightly integrated as the Apple store. Some hardware is even subsidized by service or content revenue, AppleTV, Tivo, etc. which makes openness even less appealing. Openess can win once there are compelling killer apps that the open device has that the closed ones don't. At some point the proprietary vendors get pushed into allowing 3rd party applications and services because they are getting left behind.