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Linux TV
Stealth Dave writes "ZDNet has an article about a new television from Sylvania which is basically a Linux box with a 27" monitor and TV tuner (800x600 resolution, even)! It runs a Geode single-chip solution and is broadband capable. Lots of cool features, and is designed to support a hard drive as well. The ZDNet article has a surprising amount of details without being too technical to lose their broader audience." This "news story" reads a lot more like an advertisement, but take it for what it's worth.
Companies should analyze whether putting Linux in their products will actually be useful after the excitement is over. I think there are too many paper pushers out there that read an article on Linux and wet themselves, convinced that putting it in everything will be a great idea.
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Oh bother.
The answer to the "why Linux?" questions typical of mainstream media was telling and amounted to "Because it was there, and we didn't have to license it!" Once the reporters begin to understand what the GPL REALLY means, the lid will be off and we will all be mainstream.
REPORTER: Why Linux?
SAVVY ENTREPRENEUR: Because we already owned it and held the license for it. So do you. So does everybody. We DID contribute to the Linux International organization, but we didn't have to. We already owned the software and system. So do you.
REPORTER: Huh???!!!
SE: (continuing) Yeah. The GPL meant that we could build on work already done by others, take that work for free, extend it and give the stuff we paid people to do back to the community/source. For free. We the spent our investors' money in making the idea consumer-friendly and affordable. Because we didn't HAVE to take on or license a partner or partners' technology, we have a better chance of survival. Our business model works BECAUSE OF THE GPL. We can be assured that, from the standpoint of the operating system and hardware drivers, at least, we don't have exposure to intellectual-property or copyright issues...There may be patent issues on the terms of the interface, or the functions of the system, but we wrote that into the business plan and are funded to either license or defend against Gemstar. We were prepared for that when we made the decision to enter the space.
REPORTER: But...but...but...you didin't pay for the software......!!!!!!!! That's STEEEEEALING!!!! (begins to swoon)
SE: No, it's not. You can't steal something you already own. More importantly, we paid people to extend the work others did and then gave that work back to the community to be further extended by those same people...That gave us another tremendous advantage. Because we set the project up on a publicly accessible project hosting platform, we can look at those people continuing to volunteer to improve the project and extend it's functionality and get to know them and perhaps hire the best of them based on work they have already done and that has proved a valuable extension and great fit for our business. It makes the problem of finding the personnel resources necessary to grow our business faster than the competition that much easier; thereby further ensuring the success of our business. We concentrate on the consumer. We made a TV behave and receive data like a computer...It's still a TV...simple to operate. Inexpensive. That's our business: to extend the TV as an appliance and add some computer functionality to it. Because we own the base platform the technology is built on, we're free to extend it or allow the community to do so while we continue to make it cheaper and easier to use. Understand?
REPORTER: BUT YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR THE SOFTWARE!!! YOU DON'T HAVE A PLATFORM PARTNER!!! HOW WILL YOU SUCCEED? WHO WILL PAY FOR YOUR SUPPERBOWL ADS?
SE: Ummmm...I think maybe you better read the first paragraph of the GPL. I think that concludes the interview. Thanks.
Questions from the audience:
1. How long befor Gemstar goes after these guys?
2. What's the next great embedded Linux platform/idea?
3. How long befor CE REALLY is dead?
4. Does J2ME have a chance without Sun GPL'ing the whole J2 package?
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
I would reccommend capturing at 640x480 or 320x240 if you are going to playback on a TV, you'll save a lot of space/cpu without losing anything. Use xawtv for tuning your card, v4lctl or plain xawtv. Then you do something like this:
$ mp1e -G 640x480 -b 4.0 > some_file.mpeg
Experiment with the bitrate and picture size for best results. I haven't tried playing back these captured streams on the DXR3 but I'm sure it's possible. Something to try over the weekend
Good luck...
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Hardware:
Software:
The TV..erh..Linux box automatically boots up in KDM so logging in is as simply as switching to the "X Win" channel and typing your user/login
Latest addition to the software list is MP3sb which catalogs all your MP3's and has provides you with multiple views of your colection. Konqueror displaying the PHP3 client. Anyway, lots of fun hacking this stuff...
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Indeed!
sulli
RTFJ.
All your TV are belong to Linus!
e.
www.randomdrivel.com -- All that is NOT fit to link to
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
"A box like that could be a great little inexpensive MP3 server or something."
More Technical Specs can be found here.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Why did they choose Linux? Had they chosen FreeBSD or something they could save face and not have to tell anyone how they did it. With the GPL, any hard work or software magic they do has to be open source too
But they don't WANT to close it up. They're licensing the hardware to other manufacturers, so there's nothing to be gained (and a lot to be lost - like willingness of other manufacturers to buy) by closing the software.
Also: They apparently want to sell to early-adopters, who have been asking for Linux.
If nothing else, I bet the customers don't want their TV crashing constantly, script-kiddies changing their channels or turning it on at 3 AM, the boss finding out what porn they're watching, and the movie companies showing up to bust them for viewing homemade copies of rented movies.
If your TV's on the net with closed-source appware how do you know it's not open to all of the above?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Even better would be an API, so that I could make applets for them and load them into flash. I could imagine trading these online.
First killer app: commercial skipper. Record a show beforehand, or start watching it late and it automatically trims commercials from the show. People might be surprised how short their favorite shows really are.
Of course advertisers would become more wary, and we may need to patch our video-spam killers now and then...
Truely we live in a bold new age of incredible technology...
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Seems like this would be a great tool for people whose vision is impaired. Let's face it, 800x600 on a 27-inch monitor provides large fonts, and enough space to be useful.
One downside, though. There would not be much space left over if you had one of these on your desk. I mean, really, wouldn't you just HAVE to hook it up to a PSX2, too? ;)
So why not just buy any other 27" TV with line-doubling and plug in a cheapie home PC? It'll do more and be easier to upgrade in the future. I dunno 'bout you but I expect my TV sets to last at least 10 years, anyone here expect Ch.1 Inc. to last that long or to coninue supporting this product?
Indeed it apparently can't even do Digital-VCR functions. Give me TiVo + router + firewall + webcaching + light fileserving + telephone + HDTV (& not via some damn 3rd-party add-on but integrated & used throughout) + in-house streaming and I'll buy. Otherwise it's just another TV with yet-another fancy channel guide & some pre-set "portal" crap.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.