Slashdot Mirror
New Linux PVR Box
An anonymous reader points to this product from Interact-TV, known as Telly, writing "Cool little box. PVR, stores photos, burns VCDs or DVDs (if you get a DVD burner), serves up stored content on your home network, nice gui, works with some satellite and digital cable boxes, 2.4.18 kernel. Freevo or mythTV can do about the same thing but this one is ready out of the box."
Can you record and store TV programs and later burn them on a CD?
Yes, Telly's Video Library supports an archiving feature. Eventually Telly will support DVD burning; the current MC1000 supports a CD-RW drive. You will be able to expand your unit to include a DVD-RW drive in the near future.
Also you can't pause the live feed which is imo one of the best features of Tivo
Is it possible to pause/rewind/skip-commercials of live TV broadcasts?
Currently not on live TV broadcasts, but once recorded, you can skip 30-second intervals, pause, and rewind.
Actually my DirecTiVo. Beautiful digital signal from the bird so high in the sky straight to disk. No recompresssion. Far higher quality than this or any other PVR (other than DishNetwork's PVR).
MythTV looks like a good start, but the effort required to get it working is significant, and it doesn't do anything BUT timeshift and record. It can't playback your DVD, VCDs, SVCDs, or Divx CDs, it can't save your recorded shows to CD/DVD, it can't playback music or display images, etc... Once MythTV/Freevo gets all these features, then this current software won't be that impressive.
MythTV has most of these features as add-on modules. MythTV's modular design means that there are an ever-growing number of modules that can be used to extend it's already rich feature-set.
Easy to remember...
Composite: Color and lumanence Composited (i.e. smashed) together in the same signal. If it's smashed together, it's hard to take apart resulting in quality loss.
Component: Color and lumanence kept as seperate Components. Not smashed means there's no quality loss (or at least less).
Just for the record, Component != HDTV. HDTV may be delivered via component signal, however analog and standard def digital can also be delivered via component (ala S-Video, SDI).
Interestingly enough, there is composite digital video as well (D2) which is loads better than composite analog (although probabaly not used much anymore). However you still get quality loss after many generations of copying.
Sure. Buy the unit and make a formal request in writing for the source code to the GPLed software that you have just purchased in binary form. If requested to do so, provide media (such as a CD-R in modern times, though the GPL mentions tapes) and return postage for that media.
Once you have said source code, you are free to redistribute it (unmodified or modified) under the terms of the GPL.
Until you have the binary, you have NO rights to request the source code under the GPL.
What bothers me most about your comment is the way you think you are somehow entitled to receive the source just because you exist. There is a good balance in the GPL (source needs only be provided to those who have received the binary) and this kind of demand for source code you have no right to receive really puts a black eye on the free software movement.
Have you even bothered to read and understand the GPL? By the sound of your comment, obviously not. Forget about current practice, pretend you are a lawyer for a bit, and read it. Then wait a few days and read it again. Then wait a few weeks and read it again. It's not a particularly difficult document to read, but like anything it helps to read it multiple times to get a better understanding of it. Any programmer with a modest amount of legal experience should be able to grok it. The GPL is something that anybody serious about writing free software should be quite familiar with. Why trust some schmuck's "Reader's Digest" version of it when you can read the real thing?
Um, really?
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
If you want to build your own, here's what you can use to get a close approximation to the Telly MC1000:
Cooler Master ATC-620C-BX1 (Black) Desktop Case - 108
Foxconn Allied MicroATX 200W Power Supply - 21
VIA Motherboard and Integrated 1GHz Nehemiah CPU EPIA-M10000 - 178
Western Digital "Special Edition" 80GB Hard drive - 92
Crucial 256MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM - 42
Lite-On 48x24x48x16 DVD-ROM/CD-RW Drive (Black) - 65
I guess you'll have to find a TV Tuner card that's compatible with Linux, and can go in a PCI slot - 100?
I can't find that wireless keyboard, I know I've seen it on NewEgg before though, I don't think it's more than 50
Linux - free
Freevo or MythTV - free
Cables and adapters - 20
Total cost: ~$680
So, if you wanted to save yourself some money, I guess you could do that. Needless to say, you won't get a fancy User's Manual or remote control (unless you manage to get a TV Tuner card with one).
Some notes:
You could not use the VIA integrated mobo/proc thing, and use a MicroATX motherboard and an AMD processor, and use an AGP TV Tuner card.
All of the prices (unless I was guessing) came from NewEgg.com.
I belong to the ______ generation.
If they don't provide the source code with the product, then section 3b of the GPL requires them to provide the source code of the GPL'd software to ANY THIRD PARTY, not just those to whom they have distributed the object code. The written offer of source code only has to be provided to the party to whom they distributed the object code, but that offer must be valid for any third party.
In fact, technically if someone has made a commercial distribution of object code of GPL'd programs, and not accompanied it with either the source code (section 3a) or the offer to provide the source code (section 3b), they are already in violation of the GPL. For noncommercial distribution, there is a third option (section 3c), but that wouldn't apply here.