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TV Brick - Open Source TV Streaming?
Anders Jacobsen writes "Nexedi has released the TV Brick - an open source-based box for TV capture and streaming over the Internet. Primarily targeted towards Japanese families living in France (seeing that popular Japanese channels like Yomiuri TV and NHK Sogo are unavailable outside Japan), the idea is that is you plug one of these boxes to a TV antenna and a broadband connection in Japan, and the other to a broadband plug and a TV in France; instant 'magic' happens and all the goodness of Japanese TV is in your living room." We also covered the OpenBrick project a few months back.
This is a great use for video capture.
Now people can view foreign programs, use their computer+tv at the same time, as well as a number of other things and the TV execs can't do much to morally sway users against it as it would have all the commercials intact.
I don't know if "targeted towards" is the right wording - there's a good chance that they were the inspiration for the product, but I doubt "Japanese families living in France" would be the only ones interested.
~Berj
It's not "pirating". People pay for getting the signal in Japan (actually, it's probably public television and they pay television taxes for it) and then they privately access it through a broadband connection.
And you know what? All of the stuff you listed sounds pretty damn funny, and certainly original.
That's two qualities the American media seems to find desperately hard to achieve, probably because they spend too much time trying to spit out something that will appeal to absolutely everyone, which of course is impossible.
So as a result, we have 5 billion sitcoms about a middle-age couple with 2.5 kids, a dog, and an SUV. The husband is a passive-aggressive jerk always getting into trouble with the missus because he's a moron, the wife is a no-bullshit woman, and the kids are very young, quiet and never say a word(very realistic). The other half of the primetime lineup are murder crime shows convincing the american public that they're going to get murdered or blown up by the zillions of terrorists running around(as a side note, anyone else notice that crime shows seem to be the place to break the public in on more and more invasive "crimefighting" technologies? Joe Q. Public sees all that wonderful technology at work- it's instant, always catching the bad guy, etc...it's like Ashcroft's personal heaven.)
Please help metamoderate.
Elvis. A man ahead of his time.
(OK, he shot the lousy box, but it's the same idea)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
How long do you think it will be before the Cable Companies convince the govt to make this illegal??
Think about it. If you could set this up on one system, and have hundreds of people access it (which if it's not possible now, it soon will be) then why pay for cable?? Find a server somewhere that plays some shows that you like, and watch them from there.
I'd be willing to bet that within 6 months of the first one being sold in the US the Nexedi will be in court.
It's a shame though, I could have some fun with this!!
U should check again, last time I looked there were only about 127 million japamese people living in Japan http://www.jinjapan.org/stat/stats/01CEN23.html.
I doubt there are more living in the USA.
Someone please mod this clown down as a troll. He obviously has never tried this and has no clue what he is talking about. X windows displaying a full screen moving TV picture over a broadband connection? Yeah, I'd like to see him try that.
COOL! I was going to do the same. Now, I can just use it and debug it (if necessary). As an immigrant in the US, where it is impossible to get any decent foreign TV, and the quality of the news sucks (especially when it comes to heavy biasing , to promoting whatever government agenda and to the total lack of independence), it am very glad that I can access different programs. Not that the programs of my coutry be that incredibly better, but they are of reasonable quality and allow me to be part of my original culture. One of the worst things that happen to somebody who lives abroad is going back and not understanding what people are talking/laughing about. Really makes you feel bad. So, I AM ALL FOR IT. Just find a better name..