Comments on: Unboxing the Asus O!Play Media Player – Video

By: killjoy666

killjoy666 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:51:54 +0000

Well this looks pretty good, just have to wait for the wifi version after all my tv is on 1 floor and pc on other.

By: wanorris

wanorris — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:59:59 +0000

You can telnet into it and root has no password? Oops.

Great work delving into this stuff. Thanks for all the posts.

By: Mikez

Mikez — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:16:44 +0000

The internal firmware didn't read the manual, it is trying real hard.

This impresses me more and more as if it is shipping with a
product demonstration kernel that Realtek ships with its
development boards -

*Not* a 'built for general release' kernel.

This may have been a:
"get it on the shelves in time for the holidays; we'll fix it later"
sort of development project at ASUS.

By: Brad Linder

Brad Linder — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:06:38 +0000

I just checked the user manual, and the O!Play only supports USB mass
storage devices, not CD/DVD drives.

By: Mikez

Mikez — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:21:03 +0000

Yes, it will read from a *nix system NFS share - -
Just not on the on-screen menu.
_all_ you need is:
1) Knowledge of Linux/Unix
2) Knowledge of the ASUStek product details
3) Another computer to telnet into the box from

4) Get lucky in searching the ASUStek support forum
for the directions on how to do it.

These people (ASUStek) really, really, need to hire a Linux consultant!

By: Mikez

Mikez — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:39:36 +0000

The http server has a “webtorrent” file in the cgi-bin directory.
No hints as to how to make it work.

Yes, it does ntfs, fat, ext2/ext3 and several others (MAC formats?).
It should also do iso9660 but appears to be broken in the 1.07n firmware build.

By: Mikez

Mikez — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:44:46 +0000

I did (again) wore out another keyboard.
But as I was posting...
Select Linux as the OS in the box.
The firmware image now posted is the same one loaded in my machine.
Users in the 'PAL' area will want to download the 'PAL' version of the
firmware (the machine I bought came with A/NTSC firmware).

The GPL_Release file *does not* include the kernel source code.
Hello? ASUS?

By: Mikez

Mikez — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:13:06 +0000

ASUS has supporting downloads posted:
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=sPkRGUeRr...
click the “download” tab

By: Mikez

Mikez — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:08:24 +0000

Investigate this one:
http://phonestechnology.blogspot.com/2009/10/ic...

Same Realtek processor, same Linux kernel -
This box has the card readers and wifi mounted.
Costs about half again as much as the ASUS.

By: Mikez

Mikez — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:29:32 +0000

So it isn't just me then. I thought that was a rather funky UI
but I am not used to using these things.

It might suit the end-user who is only familiar with media
appliances but people who expect a "computer user interface"
are going to be disappointed.
I was expecting at least a simplified version of their original
EeePC interface. This box has enough resources to do it easily.

The device does not write an error log that the user can view
and of course, none but a hacker will hook up an external
console terminal where they can see the error messages.

I have captured hours of those console messages to a file I can
study so I can say that the kernel build and software image needs
a lot more work.

For instance:
A person buys a "media player" with connections to a USB drive -
How many would expect to be able to plug in their external DVD drive -
Insert a DVD and watch it?
Or an audio CDROM and listen to it?

Mine will not do that - although it may be "user error" here.
According to the error messages, it is just a missing kernel module
in the firmware package (oops).
If that is the only reason, something ASUS can fix in less than a day.

There are a lot of such things shown in the error logs - the Linus build
looks to be not much better than "Working Prototype".
*AND* the box can update its firmware from an ASUS image -
so one can hope that ASUS will be posting updates that fix those problems.

There are drivers in the build for at least three models of Realtek Wifi
chips - plugging in the right USB-Wifi dongle might "just work" -
but then again, it might not. I don't have one to try.

I don't see any drivers for TV tuners in the image - so I don't expect my
USB-TV tuner to "just work". That will take an updated firmware image
and probably a lot of work to extend the on-screen menu system.

The shipping the device without password protection for the 'root' user
account (what Linux calls the 'administrator') I consider a serious fault.

End users will want to be sure that incoming connections to telnet are
blocked at their firewall (in your modem/router/gateway/whatever).
They will also probably want to block incoming connections to the
http server in the box also.
But having a http server running in the box opens up the possibility
of a web-based interface to your media player - not just on-screen.

ASUS did not include any of the iptables stuff (the Linux firewall)
in the build. So although the box has network connectivity, it
can not 'defend itself' - I consider that another serious fault.

But at least ASUS is consistent, they didn't do that for the EeePC either. ;)

So much for the "insider report" - Brad, you can use any of this information
in your "outsider report" .

By: Brad Linder

Brad Linder — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:07:05 +0000

I finally got around to plugging it in today. The software interface is OK,
and I had no problem streaming some MP3s to the TV in the basement while I
was doing some housework today (I haven't tried any video formats yet), but
the UI is absolutely horrible for browsing through large lists of MP3s. It
took several minutes of scrolling to find the album I wanted to play... and
first you had to sift through all the folders starting with capital letters
before you get to the list of folders with lowercase letters.
It's possible that I need to futz with some more settings, but so far it
looks like Mikez's hacking experiences are a bit more pleasant than my
experiences with the built in software.

By: kpcrews1

kpcrews1 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:09:42 +0000

Thanks for the quick reply. Just trying to figure out which device is the best bang for my buck.

By: Mikez

Mikez — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:58:42 +0000

It is an Embedded Linux device but I couldn't find any details.
Google cnet reviews for the review they did on the box, they
put lack of eSATA and networking on their "bad points" list.

The WD information on the user interface sounds like it is
much different than this ASUS device.
If WD will send Brad a demo unit, maybe he can do a side-by-side.

By: kpcrews1

kpcrews1 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:17:58 +0000

this is the link to the WD offering I was referring to

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?Dri...

By: Mikez

Mikez — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:06:52 +0000

I'm done for now - -

Box has a telnet daemon running, you can telnet into it.
Box has a http daemon running, a cgi-bin demo page only.
The Busybox build is fairly complete.

It has drivers for about three of the Realtek Wifi chips, so
a usb-wifi dongle might 'just work' - I leave that to Brad.

And yes, according to /proc/cpuinfo it *is* a 24K mips core.

So my "hack attack" of about three days ago is satisfied for now;
I would give it a 9.5:10.0 on the hackable scale;
I deduct the 0.5 because of the Realtek binary only audio/video drivers.