Stumbled across details of an Intel initiative to provide the building block for a next-generation networked audio/video device. See:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020909/90291_1.html
and:
http://developer.intel.com/technology/digitalhome/

They have a reference implementation of the gizmo they call a "Digital Media Adaptor" which runs Linux on an Intel PXA210 processor:
http://developer.intel.com/technology/digitalhome/pdf/building.pdf

These are available to potential OEMs ...

... but I wonder if they could be persuaded to donate one to an open-source initiative?

Anyone want to start something suitable? Reed?