Dead Penguin is an attempt to create a “Joe Public” media centre, probably more correctly a set-top-box, that is simple and intuitive to operate and absolutely passes the ‘wife test’.

It should also look good ... if you’ve got to have reasonable CPU and GPU performance to decode and display video then why not use it to make the thing look good. Notice the apple-like reflections above, these are working and are generated on the fly.

Oh no ... not another media centre!  We need one of those like a hole in the head!

Well yes, maybe you’re right, but I’m not going to apologise for a couple of reasons. Firstly working on this kind of thing is an incredible learning experience -- I hadn’t implemented a video deinterlacer in an OpenGL shader before -- and secondly none of the other media centres fit the criteria I have for general use, see the history and background for more info.

Up until now this has been created by one person, but it’s getting to the point where I need some help ... and I think the prototype is hopefully good enough to entice people to get involved.