Besides the Froyo update to the Android OS, the other big announcement for the Thursday keynote of the Google IO 2010 is Google TV. From the demo, this is what I learned about it.

• It’s a software muxer. That is, Google TV itself does not have TV tuners or DVR, nor Google manufactures any of the devices. It just muxes the signal from an existing set-top box (or an integrated tuner/DVR components if Google TV is integrated into a device) with the display/Internet contents from Google TV. It communicates with the tuner/DVR system using a new protocol to send commands (play, pause, schedule recordings, etc.).
  
• It’s running Android. This is a good choice since I think Google Chrome OS should just die. It’s wasteful to invest in two flavors of Linux systems. Android has an existing and growing third-party dev support (through Android Market), and to prove that point, they showed some existing apps from Android Market running on a Google TV device.
  
• On the other hand, it is running Google Chrome browser. This makes sense since the screen size is quite different and the way you interact with the system (keyboard/mouse instead of touch) is also different.
  
• It’s running on Intel Atom. We don’t know which one, but looking at the timing, it could be a Moorestown (Z6xx) [UPDATE: According to this Engadget article, it's Intel CE4100, an SOC version of Atom they announced last year]. What this means is that Google has been working on a x86 port of Android (not just Intel)! This will tie well with the Intel’s smartphone strategy with Atom/Android.
  

And, as for my initial thoughts on Google TV…

• Compared to Apple TV… Google TV does way more than Apple TV. It interacts with Web and TV. So, I think it has a better prospect of being successful than Apple TV.
  
• Compared to Microsoft Windows Media Center… Microsoft has had WMC for a long time that does the same thing basically: tuner, DVR, internet-access, etc. The difference is that it can drop most of the Desktop PC legacies and get more tighter integration with the devices. However, I’d like to see a version of Google TV that we can download and run on any OS (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.).
  
• Compared to TiVo… Google TV is not a DVR, so it won’t directly compete with it. However, it’s interesting that Dish Network (who has been in patent disputes with TiVo forever) was partnering with Google on this project. TiVo’s internal search thing looks quite outdated though… I think TiVo can be enhanced greatly with Google TV together. Maybe?
  
• Compared to Boxee… Actually this is a product that’s most similar to Google TV in a way. And we don’t know how Google TV deals with your existing local media sources (for example, home videos and pictures stored locally, not in the Cloud), but if they deal with it well, I think Boxee’s of the World is in trouble.
  
• Compared to Xbox 360, PS3, etc… Well, Google TV is not in direct competition, but there is a possibility of it including games. I mean, Android Market already has some games and I assume they should just run in Google TV. So, initially, it could be a great conduit for casual games, but it could evolve into a serious gaming console as well…
  

With Google TV, Google now has all three screens (mobile, TV and PC) out of (Microsoft’s) three-screen strategy. But there could be a fourth screen as Apple has shown. So, where is Google Pad (running Android of course)?

- ARM the Reigning King of the Smartphone World

Currently, the smartphone CPU market is dominated by ARM, which just designs and licenses their CPU cores instead of manufacturing actual chips unlike Intel (which also doesn’t like licensing their CPU core designs).

By just being a designer/licensee, ARM has created a very vibrant ecosystem around their CPU core and became a de-facto standard in the mobile device market. Many large and knowledgeable semiconductor companies (Samsung, Motorola, Qualcomm, nVidia, Apple etc.) as well as many small ones are building ARM-based CPUs contributing their expertise (GPU, memory interfaces, crypto subsystems, etc.) and diversifying the product offerings. And the variety and availability of compatible ARM-based CPUs offers abundance of competitive choices for the device manufacturers.

ARM has always been power-conscious coming from the embedded device / micro-controller world. They have been improving their architectures for more compute-intensive applications and soon we will see dual-core versions of ARM CPUs and with out-of-order execution (as opposed to with in-order execution). They were replacing 6800-based microcontrollers for the past decade and growing steadily. However, their visibility and popularity exploded with the introduction and huge growth of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.

ARM is also trying to move into a server market where it is increasing getting costly to provide electricity to thousands of racks of servers and to cooling systems. The recent news about ARM and the recent purchase of Agnilux by Google confirm their direction, which is their move into the Intel’s territory.

- Intel Inside in Smartphones?

Interestingly, Intel used to make ARM-based CPUs called XScale. However, they sold that division to Marvell (probably they began to think about their smartphone strategy at the same time).

On the power-conscious mobile side, Intel has been working on the Intel Atom lines of CPUs. The first generation products (codename Silverthorne) were designed for miniature PCs (or MIDs), not really for smartphones. It was underpowered for what it was mostly running on (i.e., Windows), wasn’t as power efficient as ARM, and can’t be made smaller due to its size and the number of components.

So, would this new Intel Atom Z6xx (codename Moorestown) make any difference in the smartphone market? In summary, I don’t think so. But it’s a stepping stone to the 2011 part (codename Medfield) which might make a difference.

Z6xx seems to have improved vastly over its previous generation when it comes to the power consumption. On the paper, it could be even competitive with Snapdragon-class ARM CPUs power-wise, but we would know for sure when someone actually tests and verifies the claim when a working product ships.

However, there are at two problems that I can see with Z6xxx.

First, There are too many components. Z6xx still carries Intel’s PC lineage: it has a separate southbridge and a separate RAM module. With ARM, taking Apple’s A4 for example, it has all that (CPU, southbridge and RAM) included in one chip. This impacts mostly the size and cost of the devices, and somewhat the power/performance efficiencies.

Second, It’s x86-based, and there is no compelling, consumer-oriented, smartphone OS for it. They can’t use Microsoft Windows, which isn’t designed for smartphones. There isn’t an x86 version of Windows Mobile (although Microsoft could decide to port it). It’s not like Apple will port their iPhone OS to x86.

Intel does have a Linux distribution called Moblin/MeeGo, but it’s not really suited for the consumer markets. I think Android is the right fit for it, and Intel is working on an x86-port of Android (most Android apps are Java and run on Java Virtual Machine, so the underlying CPU does not matter as much). However, we don’t know when it will be ready (there is a community effort for x86 Android already, though).

So, I think Z6xx is going to be Intel’s best-effort product, a filler, a stepping stone, toward their eventual goal for smartphone CPU. ARM will maintain its indisputable smartphone CPU dominance for, at least, two or three more years.

- 2011 and Onward

However, Intel’s 2011 offering make things much more interesting. Codename Medfield will be building up on Moorsetown and combine the southbridge with the CPU/GPU. We don’t know if the RAM module will be combined or not yet, but it’s a possibility, even the current embedded device trends.

Also, by the time Medfield comes out, it’s very likely that the x86 Android port would be stable enough and ready. Intel would have improved on the power consumption even more also.

The only question with Medfield is how Intel is going deal with CPU core licensing. If Intel maintains their current stands, they would be the only supplier of Medfield chips and I don’t think that would scale well. They will need to come up with a CPU core licensing scheme that will let others take their design, customize it and differentiate their products.

Surely, by that time, ARM would also have improved their design. So, Intel would need to be very competitive and willing to lose money on this line of products for, at least, a couple of years.

But by 2013, if Intel executes well, they will have a competitive product against ARM although I believe it will be extremely challenging for Intel. They will have to figure out what their business model (mainly licensing CPU cores vs. doing it all themselves) is going to be.

Even with all these, Intel may not make up any significant market shares in the smartphone/MID market. But it’s probably better than not having any presence.

The prices are based on November 24th, 2009.

• Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
  
• Motherboard/Memory Combo: Zotac IONITX-F-E + 2x1GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($214.98) – The board has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback. It also has an internal WiFi card (supposedly 802.11n) to make the network connection easy.
  
• Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($64.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
  
• HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
  
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit OEM ($104.99) – For Windows Media Center.
  
• Keyboard/Mouse: IOGear GKM561R Wireless RF mini keyboard/trackball ($48.99)
  
• Remote (optional): Anyware GP-IR01BK ($23.74)
  
• Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.
  

This setup is slightly more expensive than #4 using Zotac IONITX-G-E. But IONITX-F-E has (at least) two advantages. 1) WiFi and 2) digital S/PDIF (one optical and one coaxial).

I decided I really don’t need 64-bit OS and I think I can live with 2GB. Also, I think a wireless keyboard/mouse is a better choice than a remote.

The prices are based on November 20th, 2009.

• Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
  
• Motherboard: Zotac IONITX-G-E ($159.99) – has a 16x PCI-e (update: actually, just a 1x PCI-e) and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
  
• Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($64.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
  
• Memory: 2x2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($85.99) – I believe 4GB is the max for the motherboard.
  
• HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
  
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($104.99) – For Windows Media Center.
  
• Remote: Anyware GP-IR01BK ($23.74)
  
• Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.
  

The possible adjustable stuff is the memory and the hard disk drive. With 2GB, you can save about $45. With a 500GB drive, about $30. But I am not so sure if that’s worth it ($495 vs. $565).

• Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
  
• Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00, the same as POV ION330) or Zotac IONITX-G-E (MSRP seems to be $159.99, but not yet available in the U.S., it seems) – both have a 16x PCI-e (update: Zotac IONITX-G-E has only a 1x PCI-e) and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
  
• Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($59.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
  
• Memory: 1x2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($42.99) – Just in case, I want to add an extra 2GB stick.
  
• HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
  
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($109.99) – For Windows Media Center.
  
• Remote: Anyware GP-IR01BK ($24.99)
  
• Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.
  

The total is $511.94 (or $579.93 with the optical drive).

The only thing is my TV doesn’t have an HDMI port. I don’t know what the VGA quality will be like. Time to upgrade the TV (and the pre-amp)? :p

• Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
  
• Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00) – the same as POV ION330, has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback. There seems to be a linux driver (look at the second and third messages).
  
• Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-DVR-2250 ($99.94) – Dual ATSC tuner with Linux support.
  
• Memory: 2x1GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($39.99)
  
• HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
  
• OS: Mythubuntu (+ XBMC or boxee) ($0.00, but to get guide information, it’s $20.00/year)
  
• Remote (optional): Anyware GP-IR01BK ($24.99)
  
• Optical Drive (optional): LG BD-ROM ($109.99) – I can do without this initially.
  

So, that’s $413.91 + $20/year (or $548.89 with optional stuff).

The real difference without the subscription fee is the tuner and the OS, so that difference is about $60 between a Linux build and a Windows build. However, considering that Linux can run with a slightly lower spec (RAM, for example), it could actually be close to $100.

I think the guide data used to be free, but now it’s not. So, with $100, that’s 5-year’s worth of guide data… Not so sure about that…

Update: It seems Zotac announced a new ION board with a PCI-e 1x slot, IONITX-G-E “Synergy”. It’s MSRP is $139.99 and supposedly, it’s already released in Europe. This would be a good alternative.

Now, it seems we have all the parts needed to build one. Here is an example. The prices were taken as of October 27th, 2009.

• Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
  
• Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00) – the same as POV ION330, has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
  
• Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($59.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner. Too bad there isn’t a Linux driver.
  
• Memory: 2x2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($74.99) – Less should be okay.
  
• HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
  
• Optical Drive (optional): LG BD-ROM ($129.99) – I can do without this initially.
  
• Remote (optional): Adesso ARC-1100 ($21.99)
  
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($109.99) – For Windows Media Center.
  

So, the total is $670.93 (or $518.95 without “optional” stuff). I would have loved to use MythTV and XBMC on Ubuntu, but the Linux driver support for internal dual ATSC tuners are non-existent.

Not sure, if I will get to working on it right away (I still have one more year of TiVo subscription), but it seems to be a good start.

Engadget is reporting that Intel just announced CE4100 at IDF2009. It’s an Intel Atom-based media processor that can decode two 1080p streams. It has a brother called CE3100 which has Pentium M as the core instead.

Of course, it’s a different matter for a DIY’er like me to get a hold of CE4100 since it is marketed as a media processor for cable boxes and Blu-ray players. It’s probably sold in volume, mainly to consumer electronics manufacturers.

Intel is trying to push itself and its PC manufacturers into the consumer electronics market, and CE4100 and CE3100 seem to be good attempts at it. I believe it’s going to be relatively new manufacturers (instead of the established consumer electronics companies such as Samsung and Sony) who will bring out products based on these media processors. And a lot of them will be traditionally PC hardware/OEM manufacturers.

And that’s where my hope is. I am hoping that manufacturers such as Zotac (which makes ION motherboards), ASUS (which makes ION motherboards and desktops), ASRock (which makes ION desktops) and Acer (which makes ION desktops), would come out with a CE4100-based motherboard or a desktop (with a PCIe slot for ATSC tuners).

I think Intel’s intent is to run Moblin on CE4100/CE3100. However, since the core is an x86 one, I am sure Windows 7 can be made to run.

It’s going to be very interesting…

Several months ago, nVidia announced ION platform, which is pairing an Intel Atom processor with an nVidia’s mobile GPU for a system that can play back Blu-ray disks.

As for the other component for HD DVR, a dual ATSC tuner, there are already a couple of affordable PCI-e dual ATSC tuner cards (from AVerMedia and Hauppauge). These are supported by Microsoft Windows Media Center (not as much by Linux), so running a DVR software should be relatively easy.

The only required part is for the motherboard to have an extra PCI-e 1x slot. The thing is, I haven’t found an ION motherboard or system that seems to have a free PCI-e slot. I’ve been emailing some vendors about that (and my idea of Atom-based HD DVR), but I don’t know whether it will make an impact soon.

However, I am hopeful for the next 12 months. Toward the end of this year (or early next year), there should be a next version of Intel Atom (“Pineview”) available. And I am hoping that by that time, we would have more ION-like platforms.

I really like the idea of low-power (will be on 24-7, so better be quiet and light on the electricity bill), low-cost HD DVR. I am hoping that I could build one soon.

A Bit of Background

I have been looking for a backup solution for home. Ever since I took up a digital camera in 2001, I have been accumulating quite a bit of slices of my life in the form of digital photos. That collection grew with the arrival of my daughter.

I never liked the idea of burning it to a CD or a DVD: Each medium is relatively small. It’s a bit cumbersome process. It makes it easy to lose a piece of backup with (potentially) so many disks. So, I had an external 160GB drive that I’ve been using as an external backup device. It seemed to me, for backing up growing size of data, HDD seemed to be the only affordable backup medium.

However, this single external disk solution lacked redundancy; That is, if this single 160GB disk were to go bad, all (well, most of) my data would be gone.

Choices, Choices

So, I’ve been looking for an affordable redundancy backup solution. One of the obvious solution is a RAID system. However, it seems it had some special requirements (same size disks, controllers, etc.).

When I heard about Drobo, that seemed to have all my requirements. It had 4 hot-swappable disk bays and provided data redundancy with no same-disk-size requirements. The reviews seemed to be fairly positive (albeit a couple of hardware failure horror stories). However, the base model wasn’t a stand-alone product and it seems a bit expensive (I kind of vowed to never spend more than $500 for a computer, a notebook or a desktop).

Then I heard about Windows Home Server. It’s Microsoft’s contribution to the software-side of a home backup system. It was an OEM’ed product based on Windows Server 2003. The most important part for me was that it provides selective data duplication (thus redundancy) per shares.

HP seemed to be the most prominent hardware vendor that had a WHS product. It also launched with WHS and they had many additional software that made certain things easier. And the reviews seemed pretty positive.

The only thing was that they were still over my target budget (of $500 or so). It was actually similar to Drobo. HP did have a product that met my budget, but it was a single disk solution, which meant that there was no data redundancy.

acer Aspire Easystore H340

So, while searching around for different WHS solution, I came across acer Aspire Easystore H340. The first thing that stood out was that it was based on Intel Atom (N230). This meant that it was lower price and low power. The low price advantage is obvious (the price is below $400).

Since this is going to be an always-on stand-alone server, the lower the power consumption the better. It also means less cooling, which meant more quiet machine. Its lack of performance didn’t matter that much (I would have preferred N330, which is a dual core, though) since this is just going to be a file/backup server and I am not going to use it as a compute server.

It has four (4) hot-swappable SATA disk bays (for future capacity increase and file duplication), which came with a 1TB disk pre-installed with the WHS software. The disk that came with the system was Western Digital Caviar Green. This is a low-power version, which is also a plus for me. I’ve heard that the earlier ones came with a Seagate. I actually prefer WD, so that’s also good for me.

It has a gigabit Ethernet port and several USB ports. This is a head-less system, meaning there is no video-out (which is true for most preconfigured WHS systems). However, there is a WHS console program that you can run from another machine. Or you can even use the Remote Desktop client to log in.

Besides the low base price, NewEgg offered a free extra 1TB WD Caviar Green for a limited time. That just made my decision easier although this product was fairly new. Also Bing Cashback helped a bit.

Setting Up of Easystore H340

The setup was relatively easy, but there were a couple of things that acer could have done better. 1) The quick install guide and the physical manual that came in the box is really lacking. The system has a “information” indication on the front (the “i” indicator) and it remained “RED” during the first boot and installation. I was really concerned thinking that I might have gotten a lemon.

It turns out that this was because the McAfee AV that came with the system was complaining that the evaluation copy was not properly enabled. There was no description of indicator lights on the system in neither the quick install guide nor the manual. The manual I downloaded from the acer’s website does have descriptions of those indicator lights. However, it’s incomplete and made me more worried because of its description of the “RED” “network health” indicator (the “i” light).

Anyway, if you ever get this box, just let it run for a few minutes until things seem to quite down and ignore the “RED” network health indicator for now. When it seems the disk activity has quieted down, use the WHS console (installed either from the CD or from the box’s webserver) to set up things such as the admin password and stuff. Once you are done with it, you can deal with the “network health” messages.

I like having an anti-virus software, but I don’t know if I like the McAfee tool that came with it. It has an evaluation license, so I can hold off that decision for 60 days. I wonder if other free AV software works with WHS (there seems to be a plugin API that other components can hook into the WHS console) or Microsoft’s own “Morro” for that matter would work in WHS…

Adding the extra 1TB disk that came with it was very simple. You just plug it in into a free slot without turning off the computer. It comes up in the WHS console and you then need to enable it as a part of the backup system. You actually have an option to turn that into a backup device for the WHS system itself, too. I am actually thinking of turning my old 160GB external HDD into this role once I get confident with this system.

It set up some default public shares. You can also create your own public or per-user shares. The only left was to create file-duplicated shares for my photos and videos and copy things over.

It came with a media server software, but I turned it off and using the Remote Desktop client, I installed a free version of TVersity that I’ve been using. Because of lack of performance of Intel Atom N230, transcoding video (e.g., cellphone videos into something that Xbox 360 can play) is really bad and I wouldn’t recommend it. However, just streaming things without transcoding is perfectly fine.

So, now I have a small, low-cost ($389 + tax + shipping – $12.25/Cashback), low-power (I doubt it will use 50W), 2 TB (10 years ago, I never would have imagined I would own a terabyte storage at home) file/backup solution that does the daily backup of two Windows 7 RC1 PCs. I am pretty happy with it.