Slashdot Mirror
PVR For Linux
amix writes "After two years of hard work the final 1.0 of VDR (Video Disk Recorder) has been released under the GPL.
VDR is Linux based VCR software for digital TV cards (DVB, the Linux driver supports cable, sat and terrestrial cards), the new TV standard in Europe and also in use at several places in the United States. VDR is a fully networkable digital video recorder (implemented as daemon on port 2001) with optional MP3, DVD and 'MPlayer' based video-codec replay plus much more. It features "timeshifting", an incredibly comfortable OSD, functions to make editing/cleaning-up the streams easier and is controllable by LIRC, keyboard, telnet/ssh, WWW (cgi) or dedicated utilities. It can be used natively on a TV, with standard v4l tools or the KVDR KDE frontend.. You have an old PC? Add one (up to four) DVB card and you got a cheap multimedia center. Here are the screenshots. " A very impressive project indeed.
... until this gets canned by mpaa/riaa/tv industry because it permits easy sharing of shows?
How long till they get sued?
Unfortunately, in the US, there is no card that works for DirecTV or Dish like that Siemens card. :(
now when that recliner/toilet comes in i *really* won't need to leave the desk.
perlgolf: the only place where shorter is better
Are there any of these projects that will controll a Digital cable receiver or Sat System receiver like my tivo will? I'd love to build myself a coupel of these, but I havent seen any that work with digital cable. -Jason
But does it support BetaMax & LaserDisc?
I have been following this project for a while now, and I would be using it if there was anyway to use a WinTV-PVR or Creative Labs Digital VCR card with Linux. Unfortunately there don't seem to be any drivers for tuners with integrated MPEG2 encoders.
Louis
I did just pay $49 for this 4 head VCR over at Circuit City...
finally, a great build yourself TIVO setup. i didn't see if there's a project to build a public database of showtimes/channels for people to get. shouldn't be that challenging.
i'm sure a decent setup HDD, video card, and processor is near the price of a tivo, but this lends it self to much much more.
i can't see any DMCA implications, as the intent of the software isn't to distribute copies (that have been unencrypted via breaking a digital encryption method) to other users.
What sort of hardware is needed to be able to capture MPEG 2 data? Since The site has been ./-ed already, I 'd really like to know what cards are supported and what the system requirements are. Someone post a mirror..
Anyone know of a bake-off between one of these and a TiVo or a Replay?
Image quality, integration, "intelligence", listings, UI, ease-of-use, remote-control support, etc?
Frankly I want a no-brainer to handle my TV recording; not to have to put together a perl script just to record "Naked Chef".
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.
Did anybody manage to mirror the screenshots before they got /.ed?
But I already own a TiVo!!!
Which runs Linux...which makes me wonder why TiVo hasn't had to release any of their source code...someone really should look into that...
Anyway, this of course is A Good Thing, as its yet one more place that Linux couldn't go before. Every day, there are fewer and fewer places Linux can't meet the needs of a Windows user...it's only a matter of time, though I do believe interoperability between programs/the OS needs to be improved before we hold a Prime Time showdown between Linux and Windows...
It looks nice, but would it work in the states without some subscribed service to feed it schedules so you can select program names instead of times? I think that's what it refers to as EPG in Germany
Here's google's cache of the page since it looks slashdotted.
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
ok, this is what I was waiting for. I have a all-in-wonder radeon 7500, and the VDR function was the only thing keeping me from going full boar over to linux.
/.'ed so I could check it out:)
thanks guys, I salute you- when I get a job the check will be in the mail.
now I can finally be free of the oppression!
yay:)
/me does a happy dance.
now if only it wasn't
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
Sounds like I either need to start porting, or install Leenooks!
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:sPML59TaCFEC: www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/software.htm+&hl=en
Does anyone know if this application support BTTV cards? If not, then it's not much use for us North Americans.
There are TONS of DVB channels watchable. But you need a large Satellite Dish. In Europe it's mainly Ku sattellite band.
I wonder if anyone has thought to put some of these features onto their tivo or something. If it would be as easy as a package install of a mp3 player and some other stuff why not use the hardware that was created to do this stuff. Im sure you could even smb to another larger server for stuff and have a web cgi and whatnot.
The more I think about it the more I like it. I wish I had half the knowledge it would take to pull something like that off.
once again just my ramblings.
If I were only smart enough to accomplish the things I dream about.. Or maybe too dumb to care.
Looks like they have really thought this one through. There are several really cool features which push the DVR market forward and have been long overdue
- What's on next? button
- The ability to create an edited version of a recording
- Directories to hold recordings
- How much space is left on my hard drive indicator
- And I don't even want to get into network functionality.
Note to Tivo, please add these functionalites to the next system upgrade
With this sort of project in mind, I've been searching for a desktop-style case for a PC that would blend in well with a stack of modern stereo components. So far I've come up empty, and the case this guy is using is no longer being sold.
Anyone know of a good source for A/V-component-style PC cases?
Anyone know which cable/satellite companies are running DVB compatible service?
Oh, you mean like this?
http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html
Sigh. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Here's a real link this time: here you go
...you to cut out the commercials.
"Adequacy.org: Where congenital stupidity is not an option, but a requirement."
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The TiVo works better. Looks like it belongs in a A/V rack. Has a much better interface. More features. Integrates amazingly well in almost any setup.
So far all these do-it-yourself PVR "solutions" have fallen way short of being a TiVo killer. Anyone that actively uses a TiVo can tell you that.
I wonder what the minimum hardware requirements for this machine will be? Looks like this can allow you to view your favorite tv programs at your own leisure in the not so distant future and probably free from commercials. The other day, I hear over the radio about a sports commentator complaining that you can view a baseball game in 20 minutes "minus the scratching and spitting, commercials, etc." which is a self-induced pain if your home team always looses. At least the duration is minimized and you only consume a bottle of beer so you cannot get DUI.
Return the bells of Balangiga.
I managed to get a peek at the site before it got slashdotted. I only got to view one page but here it is on my own server:
http://www.jezner.com/slashdot/vdrs.html
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:uosxXkG5bnQC: www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/+&hl=en
Monday is a horrible way to spend 1/7 of your life.
i managed to backup the links saved as:p le/kl s/vdr/g fiala/p eople/kl s/vdr/software.htm
http://www.parseerror.com/www.cadsoft.de/peo
http://www.parseerror.com/www.s.netic.de/
http://www.parseerror.com/www.cadsoft.de/
respectively.
perlgolf: the only place where shorter is better
Unfortunately, the page is slashdotted, so I can only comment on what the writeup said. This looks like what Snapstream did, and I'm thrilled to see this. I've been at the mercy of windoze box, and the only format snapstream outputs is .wmv, which really stinks in that I'm tied to MS media player. So, if this thing will put out good .mpgs or something like that (whatever is the best, open video format), I'll gladly embrace it. I'm currently recording about six hours of stuff per day and burning it onto CD (can't watch nearly that much, and no, I have not yet been diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive). I'd particularly like it if I could burn the output files as VCDs, so they weren't tied to my computer (though my computer is my TV at the moment).
Now if only their web server would recover...
according to the site I see 3 words that grab my attention as interesting (and also threatening). ON-DISK EDITING. For one, i think this will be a great feature, however I can see where MPAA or broadcasters could see this in a not-so-brilliant light. Download it soon fellas, before the MAN gets it.
Here's a rundown of the chip at linuxdevices.com:. html
http://www.linuxdevices.com/products/PD2840630960
This is a great project.. a fully open sourced PVR. If I lived in Europe, I would be all over it.
For use in the U.S. a Digital TV receiver card such as the HiPix or the AccessDTV.
Depending on how the hardware interfaces with the control software, it would be excellent if it could be made to work with U.S. cards.
From a description on the site:
PC Hardware
The PC hardware I have chosen to build the Video Disk Recorder consists of the following components:
Motherboard ASUS P5A
BIOS version 1.009
HDD 37.5GB IBM DPTA353750 U-DMA-66 9ms (running with on-board EIDE
controller, so I'm not using the full U-DMA-66 speed)
AMD K6-II 450MHz
128 MB RAM
simple VGA card (no X running on this system)
Longshine LCS-8038TX network card (using the RTL8139)
3.5" floppy drive
3 Siemens PCI-DVB Sat (digital satellite receiver card)
Return the bells of Balangiga.
The link is /. ed - does anyone know if this project, or a similar project, supports TV cards such as the ATI All-in-Wonder? What little information I can glean from the site suggests that it only supports Siemens/Fujitsu DVB cards.
One of the things which makes the Linux VDR project slightly easier (?) to implement is that the DVB card they're using as a tuner outputs MPEG-2 to the system. Thus, no messy (and cpu intensive) video input and number crunching. This Digital VCR product from Creative has an MPEG-2 encoder chip on-board, and outputs MPEG-2. It can either use it's own tuner OR it will control your cable box/sat receiver via IR commands. And it's only $99. That's not a typo. I'm not claiming it's output will be as good as a Tivo/DVB/whatever, but at 640x480 resolution, it's a step in the right direction.
And it's no longer vaporware -- I picked one up at CompUSA last week (in NYC - 38th & 5th location).
Now, who's up for tearing this thing apart and creating some linux drivers?!
I recently subscribed to our local cable co.'s digital service. What is the format over the wire for these services ? Are they standard ? Could anyone provide links to the formats used ?
Thanks
Does anyone know if this is strictly a
Europe/PAL thing? I followed the link to
the "driver" site and noticed WinTV was
mentioned. When I checked the Hauppage
site the product turned out to be for Europe.
The other products I've never seen in the
US... sounds like a European Digital standard...
I'm thinking DeCSS all over again.
You can pre-order VDR Source Code T-shirts from me at AnonymousCoward@thisisn'tarealemailaddress.com
:- ).
I haven't seen the source yet, it might not fit on a t-shirt. If not your t-shirt will have an illegal link to an illegal list of illegal mirrors of the illegal source code - assuming of course they make it illegal.
In the mean time, download the code yourself, use those iron-transfers and make your own t-shirt.
Right-wingers here in the US hate Europe and all Europeans, and say that Europe is a cesspool because it is "socialist." I wonder if any of those bile-filled right-wingers could explain to me why it is that all of the coolest innovations for Linux (such as this project, as well as Linux itself!) come out of that "socialist" Europe. Aren't you people the ones that have been saying that socialism kills innovation? Hmmm, doesn't look that way to me. :-) But you just hang on to your cruel, uncaring, and dying way of living.
This is exactly what I've been looking for for my massive media closet project.
:-)
The idea is to build a tivo-like device for rich people with terrabytes of storage, so you don't have to delete shows when you are done if you don't want to. It would be attached to 200 DVD and 200 CD changers. When the user buys a new CD or DVD, they pop it in the media closet.
Each individual TV would have a dumb terminal machine that connects to the closet server via bluetooth networking. Video would be streamed on demand from the server closet to any one of the remote terminals.
The remote control would be a Palm V, also with bluetooth networking. A unified interface would control access to all media including recorded TV shows, all DVDs and all CDs.
The audio component would be similar to what many people have in their homes currently, with speaker wire running through the walls.
Now, anyone have about $50000 venture capitol for me so I can build the prototype?
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
To put things in a bit of perspective: This is an awesome achievement and these guys should be congratulated many times over for the achievement. It is *way* cool!!
However, it is *not* competition to TiVo outside of the handful of geeks that may choose to do it themselves over buying the off the shelf solution provided by TiVo and ReplayTV.
First, the Linux VDR based solution is not a no-brainer installation. Not by any stretch of the imagination. You have to deal with obtaining the correct hardware configuration, install all the software correctly, etc,etc,etc. Even if someone were to pick it up and sell it as an off the shelf, preconfigured unit it will still have significant maintenance issues above and beyond, say, a TiVo.
This is not a criticism-- just a recognition that the market for a TiVo and the primary market for this software is very different.
Most of the folks I know with a TiVo do not have the knowledge or the time to deal with such a solution.
Frankly, even with the knowledge an awful lot of folks aren't going to have the time or aren't going to see blowing the time on building out such a thing as being a useful investment.
Personally, I would rather pay $500 to TiVo and be done with it than have to screw around with getting all of the different random bits inline to make the Linux VDR solution work!
Finally, the TiVo provides a level of seamless integration that will not be achieved in the GPL VDR solution for a long time. A lot of the channel and scheduling information isn't available via public channels without doing a boatload of parsing and screen scraping. Even then, it'll change over time and break often. TiVo and Replay have the distinct advantage of having paid the big $$$ for data feeds that provide this data in a machine readable format.
Paying the $$$ to TiVo/Replay buys a lot more than just some software and hardware. It buys a service, a data feed, and a company to back the whole package. For a lot of the market, all of that must be included before something can be considered competition!
DVB usually has a standard way of encrypting channels.
There is a CI (Common Interface, ~PCMCIA) in which you can stick a CAM (Common Access Module) for the encryption algorithm into which comes a smart card with your key.
If Dish uses something similar, using a DVB card for your PC might be possible for watching dish tv.
It works for many encrypted channel here in Europe.
THen again, dish might use something totally different. Somebody here should know more about it...
Marcus
For Pete's sake, i thought we all agreed that we didn't need another effin' April Fool's jo...wha? oh, wait, never mind.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
VDR is for DVB cards only. DVB is the European standard for digital satellite, cable and terrestial
reception. The drivers for DVB cards can be found at www.linuxtv.org.
There are mainly two types of cards available paired with the respective tuner for DVB-S, DVB-C or DVB-T. One is a full featured card containing an MPEG2 decoder and the other a budget card which only delivers the transport stream from the respective transmitter. The latter are very good for Internet via sat, cable or terrestial sources because they can deliver a full transport stream.
The DVB standard provides an electonic program guide (EPG) which allows VDR to get information about the programming and transmission times.
So it differs from Tivo because it doesn't need to encode the programs and gets the programming information directly from the respective providers. Replay is done via the MPEG decoders of the full featured cards, so you always need one to
have the full benefit of VDR, it also uses the TV out of the DVB card so no graphics card is required. Of course, you can use a software decoder to decode the transport stream that comes from the card, but that is not yet implemented in VDR.
There is also the possibility to add a common interface (CI) to the DVB card, so that you can use a common acces module (CAM) to decode encrypted channels using the smartcard you get from your provider.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Does anyone know if this siemens cards have smart card conditional access capabilities?
I am thinking about chanel plus(Spain, France, etc...) access cards.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
The data feed is REALLY what makes Tivo. The fact that it records Enterprise no matter what time my local station decides to show it THIS WEEK is awesome. But I'd bet they have a lock on that data. It won't be publicly accessible no matter what.
So, what's the answer? They should write the interface for you to access their database and sale the subscription to all comers whether or not they have a Tivo PVR. I'd love to have a Linux machine on my cable feed with 4 PVR cards in it recording anything I MIGHT like and a playback machine connected via my home's 100BaseT network at each television.
The Tivo service would continue making money and I would retain the right to set my home up with the hardware system that I would prefer.
Can I be a slashdot editor? I think I finally have the hang of it now:
I let users search the web for articles (interesting articles optional!). They email them to me. I post them. Then, to make it look like I actually care, I write (gramatically correct optional!) a byline like: "A very impressive project indeed."
Wowzers! Think of all the money and jubeis!!!
SWEEET
Man, I've been looking for something like this for years.
Now, maybe when the dust settles from the slashdotting I'll have a closer look. This descripition fits what I've been after uncannily well.
Once upon a time it was the Video toaster, now who says it can't be used for skin.... uh err home security?
DMCA? Naw, they just want to see what you do in the privacy of your home....as has been found out about what's
popular with the anti crime cameras in London.
Or maybe I'm all mixed up. Is the device/program only usable for broadcasted channels?
It only works with DVB broadcasts, that is a certain standardized format for digital TV
While maybe european broadcasters and media companies not really like this, i don't know of any european country where a software like this could face legal problems. VCR manufactures uin europe never faced legal problems like the BetaMax Case.
Jan
Of course, VDR won't have any problems with the DMCA because it is a German project and there are very few DVB transmissions in the US. Still, it could be adapted to the ATSC standard provided there will be any cards for PC and information for the drivers available. This seems to be highly doubtful since there is currently talk about preventing any unauthorized recording of ATSC transmissions. I think there is more information about that on the EFF's web site.
The driver for the Linux cards support NTSC and there have been reports by people on the linux-dvb mailing list at www.linuxtv.org that they work for the few US DVB satellite transmissions. Although it seems to be hard to get the hardware in the US.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
They make money on the service. In fact, they've been subsidizing the production cost of the hardware.
I think it would be smart of TiVo to open up their service to subscribers as a SOAP service. This would let them focus on revenue from the service and give the OpenSource community a good listing source. Granted you would still have to subscribe but you could use and hardware or software you wanted.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
I believe the Seimens (yes, it's fun to say aloud from your cubicle) card is the same as the Hauppage DVB-S card. Linux support is spotty, but they do support their WinTV cards for SUSE and RedHat. However, either way you'll have to get someone in Europe to ship you a card. It'll be at least 8 months before I deploy to germany, so don't look to me.
it just pushes MPEG2 streams from the sky onto you hard disk. If you get the "good" DVB card, decoding is done in hardware, too, and it comes with a near perfect TV-Out for broadcasts and VDR Menues.
You need more beef for the divx->MPEG2 transcoding stuff.
Which card is inexpensive and has all of the important features? And of course the the one that is best supported in linux. -Israel
Who is the woman in the 4th screenshot?
yeah, B for "BUTTLICKER"
But hardware vendors could make pre-installed low-cost, no-subscription-required boxes. Of, they could in fact offer a subscription to their own service. This lowers the cost of entry and time-to-market for competing with TiVo and ReplayTV. I suspect, however, that a number of bogus patents stand in the way.
Just to be clear, what I'm about to talk about is a PVR, not a DVR, so the signal turns analog and then gets compressed again along the way. So this particular solution may be a little off topic, at first:
.ASF files.
Ever hear of snapstream? (http://www.snapstream.com) If you have a TV Tuner card, this program turns your computer into a Tivo-Like device allowing one to capture TV Shows as
One of the features this software has is it can control your Satellite Dish or Digital Cable via Infa Red. It has a little cable or something connected to an IR emitter so it can set the channel for you. Theoretically, with this device, and IR controlled device could be tuned.
The problem is, as I mentioned above, is that you're going analog and then going digital again with the associated Degredation. (To be fair, I don't think it'd be bad.)
I imagine somebody COULD find a way to do a similar thing with Linux. If they were to take their satellite reciever apart, figure out which cable has the digital data (if that's possible... I'm not claiming to know what really goes on inside of these devices and imagine I'll be told it's not possible), and funnel it off to the computer, it wouldn't be that much bigger of step to add infa-red capability too.
Anybody wanna donate their reciever to experiment on? Heh
"Derp de derp."
Okay, you've got Tivo, ReplayTV and others in the US. Now you've got VDR which can work in Europe.
Are there any reasonable options for a PVR in Australia (preferably with a schedule guide)?
Thanks,
-Bruce
One step for PVR, A giant leap for Open Source!
As you can see I am particularly passionate on this topic.
BRAVO!
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
As the subject says. The Showtime info is broadcast on the sat. The further you go into the future of browsing it the longer it takes for the reciver to download it. You really don't need a service if you read the info directly from the card.
If there were a USB (or preferably Firewire) based DVB solution, this could make Linux on the Playstation 2 all that much more scrumptious...
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
Given that this works for DVB cards and not here in the states, what i the best supported BTTV card under linux?
Try Zap2It.com -- listings in HTML for your zip code.
Beware of the free text password stored in a cookie.
Mix that with a DVB card and you can probably have free TV pretty easily.
This will not kill the tivo, or be something you'll be able to setup to replace a tivo.
First of all, afaik, satellite transmissions are already mpeg encoded, so all this thing does is dump the mpeg to the hd, no need to encode. That's why he's able to list an AMD k6-450 in the system requirements. I'm sure it could get by on less if it also had a comparable mpeg decoder.
The tivo must encode to mpeg using hardware. I know of no hardware that can do this in Linux. (If you know of any, please let me know). The tivo also has a dedicated mpeg decoder. This is how the Tivo is able to get by using a 50Mhz PPC processor.
So, as soon as there's a tuner card with on board mpeg encoding (In Linux), and the availability of TV listings that can be downloaded for free, and is brain dead simple to setup, I don't see the tivo going away any time soon.
This is necessary...life, feeds on life...
Pick a method that doesn't support a standard ATI All-In-Wonder card. Congrats. Nice job. Pick a card instead that is obscure and nobody cares about.
But I guess the API was easier, so what the hell.
What would be really cool if there was a way to mark a segment of time as "advertisement" and forward it to a server. Other boxes could then contact this server to find out what time slices of a particular show are commercials. The software could then automagically edit the stream so that when viewed it already knows where the commercials are.
All it would require is one person to mark the commercial times during the initial viewing.
I've got an idea for the server service/protocol... ADDB (Ad Database!!)
In the EU, though...
The first is the EPG data, trasnmitted along with the program. This is program info being broadcast by the broadcaster. It is not programmable (might be done if a parser is written, dunno) but it will list the shedules/day along with a summary for the movie/report/news/whatever. VDR can display this.
Then there are several projects to make use of publically avaialable databases. The implementations differ from country to country, for the Astra sattelites one could use TVProg (check it out on Freshmeat or Sourceforge), which will fetch the TV-guide for the day (or period) you specify and import it into a MySQL database. It has an incredibly clean and easy to use CGI frontend and a perl-wrapper to program the analogue Linux VCR. It only would need a port of this wrapper to the VDR system to incooperate it.
There are at least three other such projects of which I forgot the name, however.
You don't even need a video card. What you need is the TV card(s) themselve(s), one is enough, two and more allow for timeshifting of one or two channels. They are not cheap, however, not as cheap as the analog cards. Each such card has its own TV-Out. Mine has TV-Out, Stereo+Surround RCA out and an additional mini jack out for audio. Control of the VDR can be done over the net by using the SVDRP protocol (Simple VDR Protocol) or by telnetting into your VDR box.
Hello?? Fred?! Is this you?
Is there any way to make this thing work with
an HDTV card? My 21" monitor would look great
with 720p HDTV content...
Mark
I've always thought Tivo should do that.. Sell their software, modified to run on a standard Linux X86 box with a few supported TV tuner boards. The customer pays a certain amount for the software to cover support costs and then Tivo charges for listings just the way they do now.
It wouldn't replace the regular Tivo, it'd be more of a thing for the tech savvy early adopter type. Like you say, the ability to have virtually unlimited drive space (as much as I want to add) and multiple cards for simultaneous recording would truly be killer.
The only reason I can think of they haven't moved in that direction is that they don't want to piss of Sony and Philips, their hardware licensees. At some point though, Tivo will be embedded in so many different set top boxes that it won't matter anymore.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
In addition to removing the comercials out from your recordings it would be nice to add a "compress" feature that converts the mpeg-2 video to DivX. Once you conver it you probably wouldn't be able to edit it (remove comercials) again thats why I am not sugesting automatily converting all recordings to DivX on the system's free time (not recording or being watched). You should be able to add many additional hours of recording time by compressing shows.
This is all very well and good, but my satellite decoder(In South Africa) works with the same system as the UK. But we have smart-cards that slot into the decoder. How would this be overcome in VDR? You can't scan the card, or know the algorithms need to decode the stream?
PS: I do not have the technical knowledge, but this seems impossible
Yeah, I will be running this when I get my linux kit in may. A USB tv tuner isnt hard to come by on the cheap, and I ain't paying for service
Wouldn't Gnunet make a dandy medium for spreading TV Listing updates around? One person enters a listing item, and the whole TV coverage area can get the update.
:v)
Vik
My wife could set up a Tivo, and she has no problems running it. She could not set up this linux-based solution.
This doesn't pass the "wife test", and will never displace Tivo or any other commercial solution until it can. There's more to systems engineering than just functionality.
there are very few DVB transmissions in the US
Bullshit
5 Million of us receive several hundred channels from Dish Network (EchoStar), which uses DVB.
I don't know if they are compatible with the DVB receiver cards or not, but it is DVB.
Hardly sounds like "very few" to me.
Hello,
p g
p g
I have a linux based PVR.
Some features:
MJPEG based recording of Buz & Matrox Zoran chipsets.
Automatic transcoding to divx 4 at 90 mb/half hour show.
Shows are automatically recorded from guide data downloaded by xmltv and shoved in to a SQL database.
There is also a full featured divx movie player frontend.
Of course this is all controlled by LIRC. I've basically been putting these pieces together for a while and it seems to work very well at this point. Soon I will no longer be touching the tivo.
Some screen shots.
The TV viewer.
http://ssm0.aae.uiuc.edu/~jthomas2/pic.j
The Movie Viewer
http://ssm0.aae.uiuc.edu/~jthomas2/pic2.j
I do all my work on FreeBSD. It'd be
great if this work was ported to FreeBSD.
Ok, that's nice. So if it's DVB, that should work with the cards and VDR. But if it is encrypted than you also need a CI and CAM and that maybe hard to get. Maybe the people I heard from were talking about free to air (FTA) transmissions.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Ordinary DVB in Europe isn't encrypted at all is it? If that is so, perhaps our legislators should be made aware of this as an example that broadcast television really doesn't need copy controls. That'd be sweet if we US folk could get raw MPEG-2 streams of all our programming. Let the broadcasters pay by commercial time as par tradition and get rid of this privacy invading subscription crap.
Funny, indeed, since I set the user-agent string of my browser (Opera6-linux) to several alternatives (Opera, MSIE, Mozilla4.76 and 34 and 3.0) and even switched off ECMAScript (you name it Javascript) support. Why some find it funny to "strike back" on the Wintel world I am currently not able to enter your site using the Linux Operating System and "Javascript" turned off. I hope you do not belong to those ppl who are always ranting and moaning about
Very cool, indeed !
As the Snafu cartoon once read, "I'm a little fuzzy on step two." [miracle occurs here]
Or in other words:
Will I retire or break 10K?
For screenshots just turn on your TV.
I saw a couple of the screenshots, and they were of the menu system superimposed on the broadcast.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How about Australia? Anyone? I know digital cable/sat is close to non-existant down here, I'm probably the only one with DigitalCable (it's still a trial service), but what is involved here? I wish so much i could get a Tivo or similar device, but nothing of its kind exists down under, how can I help to make this one work here??
:)
Actually more to the point where can i find hacking info on digital set-top boxes, if the thing that i have has not only a console port but a network port it has to have some 'unused' potential.
This is exactly what I want to do at home, have a home entertainment PC hooked up to my home theatre. Great work guys and gals, bring it on
Cheers
Hmm, I'd think this was a joke, but the rest of your comments seem serious enough.
Is there a project homepage? Are you planning on releasing code for it?
Looks very nice so far.
--grendel drago
Saw this a few years ago. There is also MediaOne and a few others.
The main difference between these units and TIVO/Replay is the guide that drive the units. The other is just string the hardware with software glue to drive it. Its a greate step for a open source program but the hardware is Europe based minus a guide.
The real problem is there is nothing worthwhile on tv anymore. Except for the SciFi channel and Enterprise the rest is either reusing ideas and scripts dating back to the mid fifties!
Between TVguide.com and Zap2it.com could substute but the self maintaining of TIVO/Replay still make it a better deal. Esp with twin 128mb HD!
Echostar does make a sat. decoder box that will output DVB- I'm using a few of them for HDTV research. It only outputs the channel you're tuned to though, so there'd have to be something to interface with the box. But hey, it's a start :)
It like the remote control board the best. I assume it can be easily programed to flash 12:00am all the time.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Linux users don't worship Bill Gates and his army of microsofties.
I found this in their mailing list archive: http://linuxtv.org/mailinglists/linux-dvb/2001/08- 2001/msg00288.html
Mailing List archive
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[linux-dvb] Re: ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON 32MB DDR (AGP)?
* To: Louis Swart
* Subject: [linux-dvb] Re: ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON 32MB DDR (AGP)?
* From: Carsten Koch
* Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 16:45:28 +0200
* CC: linux-dvb@linuxtv.org
* Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
* Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
* Delivered-To: mhonarc@limes.convergence.de
* Organization: ICEM Technologies GmbH
* References:
* Sender: cko@icem.de
* Sender: linux-dvb-bounce@linuxtv.org
Louis Swart wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I am starting to setup a Video Disk Recorder for my home.
> My knowledge of Linux is limited.
> I intend to buy the "ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON 32MB DDR (AGP)"
> card form my home VDR. It seems to be one of the best currently
> available.
> > 1) Is the "ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON 32MB DDR (AGP)" card a good choice?
Not for VDR.
> 2) Will it work with the VDR software?
No.
> 3) Any thing else I should know or consider?
Currently, the only card supported by the VDR project is the
family of Siemens DVB cards.
What VDR does, to record a TV broadcast is, take the bits as
they come from the sky and store them on disk. The MPEG-encoding
(compression) takes place at the broadcast side, not in your PC.
The family of Siemens DVB cards does not do MPEG compression nor
does VDR.
The "ATI All-In-Wonder" cards on the other hand, receive analog
signals (that were not compressed at the broadcast side) and do
the compression with a combination of ATI hardware and software
in your PC. VDR does not currently support this mechanism with
any card. If VDR should ever support this path, I would guess
that it would use an encooder card that is well-supported under
Linux. Maybe the KFIR card.
Check out
http://linuxtv.org
http://www.lindy.cc/dvb
http://www.linuxdvb.tv
Carsten.
My god man!.
Obviously you've NEVER used a Tivo before. Tivo is an incredible combination of hw and sw. It TOTALLY changes the way you watch TV. You never worry about being interrupted while watching TV, you just pause it. You never worry about having a tape in the VCR, programming it ahead of time, making sure the tape is in the right spot, rewinding tape, etc. Just set a "season pass" for the show and it'll catch all the unique episodes of that show on that channel for you. Missed what they said while watching TV? Just hit instant replay to jump back 8 seconds, or go back even further in the buffer. Search for shows based on title, director, keyword, category or actor. You can even have it autorecord stuff for you if it meets those crtieria. For example, I like stuff about the 777, so I have an autorecord wish list for keyword=777, and when something comes on with that anywhere in the program guide info, it records it for. You really wanna waste you time searching constantly and then programming your VCR?
There's always something for you to watch in Tivo. You almost never sit in front of your TV and channel surf and find only crap. It's because of the recordings, season passes or wishlists you setup yourself or the suggestions it gives you based on your thumbs up/down ratings.
They accomplish this on 54 mhz PowerPC Linux box w/16 megs of RAM, a dedicated mpeg2 encoder, dedicated decoder and a custom chip that can handle multiple DMA channels (8 I think) at once and a 4400 rpm drive drive (no, not 5400 and not 7200 rpm).
Man, most people that are skeptical at first and say "I don't need that" or "yeah, I can do the same thing w/my VCR" and actually buy a Tivo, say, "Wow! How did I ever watch TV without this?"
For a good explanation of most of the benefits go to http://www.keegan.org/jeff/tivo/whatistivo.html.
This PVR isn't even CLOSE to a replacement. Tivo has sold 400K units and is WAY easier to setup and use than this PVR solution.
No, I don't work for Tivo and no I don't get paid a dime by them either (although I wish I did).
Well, one country in Europe can get Tivo, and that's England. See http://www.tivo.co.uk/.
Well... Tivo doesn't sell or have any guide data in Australia, but maybe you can convince Tridgell to help you out. He and some his close friends use it in Australia. See: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/20/tivo_ hack/print.html
http://marc.merlins.org/linux/linux.conf.au_2001/D ay4/InsideTivo.html (be sure to check out the PDF and picture library near the bottom)
Does anyone know what standard China and/or other SE Asian countries use for their digital satellite transmissions?
Do not anger the worm.
The screenshots rule. Oh, btw, Head & shoulders shampoo is cool, I choose Head & shoulders shampoo.
IYRATEWFTPYG*
V DR KDEPCDVB
VDRGPLVDRTVDVBTVVDRMP3DVDOSDLIRCsshWWWcgiTVv4lK
*If you remove all the English words from that post, you get...
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
and I've got a Tivo. Several of my friends have them too, they're still a niche product over here, but catching on. The main (only?) UK satellite provider Sky also have their own PVR product called Sky+, which is much like the DirecTivos, except with their own (inferior) software. That's the point I think, it's things in the software, like Season Passes & Wishlists, which make the product. I'm not saying this OSS solution lacks in that department, I haven't tried it, but every PC based PVR I've seen so far has fallen way short of Tivo for functionality.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Wouldn't it be cool to have a distributed database with advertising timecodes for this?
So the first person watching the Simpsons marks up the ads and everyone else can just zip right through it...
I'm in germany, and I'm looking for a nice PC case for this project. It should be
* black
* affordable
* very quiet
* not too big
* not too ugly
* preferably with infrared in front
Any pointers?
Then I lose my skip-to-end button. :( C'mon, if they were really trying to maximize Tivo's ease-of-use, this would be configured somewhere under "my preferences", instead of this select-play-select-9-select silliness. Or better yet, there would have been an extra button on the remote (they were custom-made for Tivo anyway) so that people could do whatever they like best. The Tivo president admitted that this was a consession to the networks.
:-P
True enough, but they did add it back. And Skip to End is a bit pointless for most people anyway. The thing I don't like is the fact that it disable the "skip to tickmark" as well, but they'll fix that in the next version of the software.
I've seen the networking hacks (been too cowardly/lazy to try 'em, though), and I gotta admit that what you did with webserver sounds pretty cool. But that's what they are: hacks. And someday you'll get an update and then you'll have to set things up again. Compare the effort you put into this with what it takes to do the same on a PC.
The next version of the software will have support for the TivoNet/TurboNet adapters built right in. Okay, sure, you gotta load TivoWeb on there and I'm sure 3.0 will break the compatibility, but still, it's not as bad as all that.
Well, I guess time will tell. I don't think Tivo has the balls to implement certain ideas, such as
-collaborative suggestions databases. Imagine if the database of all the thumbing up and down you've done over the last couple of years, could be shared, and someone did the "computer dating" game to find other people that like/hate the same stuff as you... You'll learn about TV shows (which you'll probably like) that you otherwise never would have looked at.
(insert big wide grin and "i know more than you do" look here)
p2p sharing of "sed for video" scripts so that people can share little scripts to automatically playback shows w/out commercials
True dat. Not bloody likely.
Save an hour-long show to CDR in one minute instead of having to play a show in real time for a vcr to record
Wow, you have a 60x burner?!?
Seriously, saving your show long term isn't what the box is designed to do. Yes, it *could* do it, but quality loss is a huge problem for me to do that. If I want to save it long term, I want it to look good, and real-time MPEG encoding just looks like ass compared to better methods.
Someday, some Python programmer is going to think of putting these things into his do-it-yourself PC PVR, and then we'll see who's playing catch-up.
Agreed that the PC solution can beat any other one down, but you still miss the point. A better solution is easily done on a PC. But it won't be a) cheaper or b) easier to use/setup. Joe Sixpack doesn't want to learn linux and buy a computer and set it up just to record and playback TV. He wants an easy box that already knows how to do it. PVR solutions like Tivo will catch on in a big way, and yes, better PC solutions will exist for the high end. That's the way it works in this realm of computers.
Actually, one of those "I've been meaning to get to" projects involves writing Arexx scripts to control my Video Toaster/Flyer to be a PVR. Input is good ol' NTSC and standard stereo audio, right from the VCR's tuner or DirecTV box. Add in the Infrarexx (see http://www.aminet.org/~aminet/util/rexx/InfraRexx. readme) to control both those, and a source of program data.
As far as the program data is concerned, I also recall seeing something, sometime, somewhere on Usenet, about DirecTV's program guide data showing up on the unit's serial port. Need to investigate further. (Last time I did the search was a while back, before Google put older archives back online.)
Of course with all those drives spinning it'll be awfully noisy, but when you've already got the stuff laying around...
Unless your grandma can build one of these, I wouldn't count on them replacing TiVos or Replays anytime soon.
Why does "your grandma" always get hauled out as the poster-child for technical dipshits in a effort to prove that the learning curve for some new technology is too high?
Why not just argue, "The learning curve for this new technology is too high" and give your reasons why? There's really no need to slander someone else's grandma.
Is anyone else besides me getting tired of this "grandma argument"?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
With an infrared port plus a few moments of your time you've got the magic to send macros to anything you want - including a dish controller. :)
TiVo will even let you *gasp* play video directly on your TV without using a computer! Wow! What an improvement!
Cause that is just how I remember school.
I got yelled at by my math teacher, when we were learning how to multiply (which I had known how to do for a couple of years). I got a simple equation, something like 8 x 27.
I solved it like this:
8x30=240
-
8x3=24
-------------
8x27=216
This is _still_ how I do most multiplications in my head. Do I have to mention, that my kindergarten teacher said something like "DO YOU WANT TO READ TO THE CLASS!!!?!?!", when I mentioned, that she read a word out wrong or something (can't remember that incident, but I've heard it from my parents and a parent to one of the kids I went to school with).
No, I doubt I'm Mensa material, but that doesn't mean, that I should have been given the same mundane tasks as average kids. Society wants to help out the "weak" kids; here's a clue-by-four: Intelligent kids are also weak kids.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.