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Linux-Powered PVR/Satellite Machine
spicyjack writes "After reading this story, I thought this submit would be appropriate. A German company called Dream-Multimedia-TV has come up with a schweet
custom box targeted for the PVR/Satellite markets. How about a machine with a 250Mhz IBM PowerPC, 2 SmartCard readers, one CompactFlash slot, UDMA66 IDE, MPEG2 support with MPEG4 (DivX) support on the way, Ethernet, LCD display, SPDIF out, yada yada yada (zipped User's Manual). Oh, and it is built specifically to run Linux. Available right now. Commence hacking!"
I wish I could find some good Linux PVR software, tried mythtv but its only recommended with use with a tv out and a tv set and a remote, I need one I can use on my monitor with mouse support (so I can scroll up and down with my mouse).. Plus it needs to have smooth playback, unlike mythtv, I have dual p3 700mhz cpus, and mythtv runs like a dog on them.
/dev/video0 -c 'divx ;-) low-motion' -v -p 40 -F 23 -q 100 -m mono -b 64 -t 60m savedshow.avi
Right now in linux I use "Vcr" to record tv shows, with this script:
#!/bin/bash
killall motv
killall xawtv
killall -9 vcr
vcr -g
keanmarine.com
They mention satellite service in the article, but after (albeit briefly) browsing the German website I can't tell which services it is compatible with. I happen to use Dish PVR, I would love to move to an open source option!
I also have DishPVR. It works, it's easy to use, it's built into your receiver already. You've already paid for it and you won't be getting your money back anytime soon, and if anything goes wrong with the DishPVR, you just have to call them up and they'll replace it or fix it. So why bother spending an extra $500 on an open-source option when what you've already got and paid for works just fine?
Well, the thing with directv is although it's encoded, all the codes are on the internet, although the directv people change them about once a week. I have a friend who has an old pentium hooked up to his reciever through the card slot, and it gets new codes real-time. The card emulator-thingie costs $100. So I don't see why you couldn't combine all that into a pvr that would decode the stream.
disclaimer: this is all fiction, all my friends are law-obiding citizens that pay for their sattelite tv.
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I wouldn't exactly call a PVR with a 250MHz PowerPC exactly a "bad boy". Okay, so it's a PowerPC which means it runs on less power and releases less heat, yada yada yada. But still.
On an unrelated note, I wonder if PPC Linux distros would run on these things out of the box...
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Open Source Shirts
My only complaint about the tivo is I can't archive the videos on my computer (which means on dvd-r). I don't see how this is different than saving to a vhs tape other than the dvd-r would have a lower quality recording (tivo is pretty poor at encoding).
In the end the big bonus of this system over existing PVR solutions would be openness. I hope the openness isn't paired with low quality, hardly usable, half baked software. (sorry I'm jaded, if open source was as "good" as closed why is tivo very good, and I can't find an open PVR for my pc that works as well.)
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
There was a slashdot article sometime back that mentioned MythTV. Last weekend, I loaded up the debian packages (although I had to manually install xmltv since the deb packages were old) and all I can say is wow! It's been running stable for the last 4 days and I've already recorded more than 20 programs. It does that Tivo-ish time-shifting stuff which I find really cool, but somewhat useless for my purposes since I use MythTV mostly for recording stuff. Plus, it's got a pretty nice web interface so I can still start the recording even when i'm away from the computer.... (just by accessing the mythweb frontend through apache/php)
So far it allows you to use two codecs (nuppelvideo and mpeg4) but for some reason I get a bit better performance with the nuppelvideo stuff so I stuck with that. But I think the really big selling point of MythTV isn't the ability to record, do timeshifting, or access via the web... it's about it's really, really nice graphical interface. You just really have to see for yourself to believe it. I feel like a born-again couch potato!
MythTV debian packages are here.
perhaps something is wrong with your mythtv setup? mythtv runs nice and smooth on mine! When I added an additional 512MB, it runs great! Although my setup might be a bit more complex (using TwinView xinerama) but it still runs perfectly fine on a normal monitor without TV-out. (besides, I just use the xinerama clone function anyway)
Since all the web pages i could find on this product were in langues i could not quite understand, i figured ppl would apreciate a picture link:
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/news/2002/10/10/24.jpg
Looks like one sweet toy though i gota say
marry their smartcards to their receivers, so a Dish Network smartcard will only work in the receiver in which it was first activated unless you hack it
Not true. A receiver and smartcard can be remarried at any time. All it takes is a call into the Dishnetwork call center (pretty much any one of the 8, just pray that you don't get El Passo) an agent simply changes the hardware in their system CSG, and a supervisor sends a brixton reset. Magically your receiver is now married to a different smartcard.
I worked for Echostar for over a year. I did tech support. I know all kinds of tricks for their systems. I have even figured out how to get their programming for free, indefinately. I never did, because I value my anal virginity too much to go to jail for free TV.
One quick example, Know how they tell you that they can't remove a pay per view event from your system if you pre-order it? That's not true. Most agents simply do not know how to remove them, hell most supervisors don't know how. But it is possible.
Echostar intentionally keeps information from the public, and even their employees to maintain a level of security through obscurity.
Then don't even tell the tech support employees when they are sending out countermeasures. All of a sudden, you'd just get 80 calls with people who have error message 051.
PVR hardware is all nifty and fun, but it's the TV scheduling/programming feed that makes these things useful. That's what Tivo and ReplayTV charge their monthly fees for.
Now, if you had a hackable PVR *and* you had a reliable source of free and accurate electronic TV listings, then you would have something.
Until then I don't see what the fuss is about this box. Without the ability to easily program to record all episodes of you've got doorstop with a PowerPC chip in it.
Not true. A receiver and smartcard can be remarried at any time.
Erm, yeah. I was aware of this, however dimly, but it didn't really seem relevant, because you still need a receiver's serial number to marry the card to. A WinTV DVB card, even with the appropriate Nagravision CAM, won't provide this serial number to the smartcard, so you can't legitimately subscribe your own homebrew satellite PVR to Dish... unless you know something I don't.
Not entirely true, I think. this press release gives the following quotage
I've come across occasional mentions of DVB standard free - to - air broadcasts accessible in the USA - someone else will have to find and post these - but I guess you could anyway just buy a _much_ bigger dish and point it at the horizon
DirecTV uses its own proprietary encryption scheme which isn't supported by anything but DTV-licensed receivers, and while Dish Network uses Nagravision [nagravision.com] encryption, which is supported by some things (like Hauppauge's WinTV DBS card), they marry their smartcards to their receivers, so a Dish Network smartcard will only work in the receiver in which it was first activated unless you hack it (and even then it may not work outside a Dish Network receiver).
I'd only add one small thing to this. You're absolutely right about not being able to pick up DTV channels - DirecTV has their own proprietary scheme which is incompatible with DVB. But Dish, OTOH, does broadcast some channels unencrypted, which you can pick up with a DVB receiver - the Lyngsat site can tell you which ones are FTA.
Of course, the channels people want for free (HBO, Showtime, whatever) are all encrypted by Dish, so thinking a DVB receiver will get you free HBO is hopeless, as you rightly point out.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I held off the purchase of a network audio player because the devices on the market didn't fit the bill (for example, neither the Audiotron nor the SliMP3 can handle Ogg Vorbis natively, AFAIK).
This could be the box I was looking for: Ethernet, backlit LCD, IR remote, enough oomph for decoding audio streams, and Linux. And PVR functions thrown in to boot.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
The "dreambox" is nothing more than a polished version of the d-box, a machine build from Nokia, Sagem and Philips for the European, especially german speaking market. A Company called Kirch Media sold these boxes in order to give access to "Premiere", a digital, excrypted set of some 30 or so channels some of which are pay-per-view. Kirch is now bankrupt, since pretty much everybody and their friends watched/watches this "Premiere" for free since the Irdeto encryption wasn't really hard to break.
The d-box was build around a 66Mhz PPC with 32MB of RAM and 8MB of Flash. It features prtty much everything the dreambox has to offer minus the IDE channel. For this machine, an open source firmware was written by some enthusiasts since the original firmware was Java based and took up to 30 sec. to switch channels - not real acceptable is it. Streaming and therefore the PVR function can be achieved via the 10Mbit LAN connection on the machine itself and some nice software tricks.
You can get further infos (mostly in german) using google searching for "linux@dbox2"
...or so I read somewhere, they'd better hurry up if they want to get it into Santa's sleigh...
So all you ex UK OnDigital subscribers who are going to be forced to return or pay for your set top box, there is hope of a getter gizmo.
This is a new suscription free PVR for the UK market that receives all the free to air DTTV channels.
Not much in the way of details or prices yet...