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."

Comments

always room for more competition.

[sweeney37]

Now that I have a TiVo I could never give it up. But the fact this offers network connectivity, 5.1 digital out, and composite video is quite impressive. The price may seem a little steep, but a new TiVo with a lifetime subscription is about 650-700, but this box is subscription free.

The real question is the interface going to be able to compete with TiVo? The ability to do season-passes are (IMO) what will make it or break it.

Mike

Re:This device doesn't impress me.

[anubi]

Dear VPN:

I think you have a lot of us "anti-capitalists" and our open-source fanaticism all wrong. For many of us, the sticking point is *not* price, whether it be music or video recorders. The value is in our own ability to maintain/upgrade/customize whatever we have, and have the confidence that if anything at all goes wrong, we aren't held hostage at bugpoint at someone else's mercy. That's a good way to get raped.

Its just a philosophy. Some of us are very uncomfortable with the idea that somebody else controls something we have. Its bad enough the government traces us and taxes us on our homes, cars, and jobs. But if there is anything the electrical power brokers in California have taught me, its don't let myself get cornered. Don't let businessmen ever get you in a spot where you have to do whatever they say in order to "protect" your investment. Our California governor Gray Davis made like a nice guy and gave in to all the guys who knew how to play him like a fiddle. Where did that get us? Was that Pro-Capitalism? Or was that greed and control gone horribly wrong?

I don't like the idea of being a sharecropper.

Nor do I want to try to build a long-term investment with ephemeral building blocks.

If its a nice box, well designed, open source, etc, its worth the price. I don't expect to be subsidized by someone else who had a plan to force me into other business with them. I consider myself honest, but I have every expectation they be honest with me. Open source to me means they are willing to be completely honest with me and are holding no surprises. Its all on the table, subject to any verification I feel I need to do. In most cases, I probably won't verify anything at all, but should something not work as I expect, I may have to verify something.

I wrote another post in another forum regarding my disappointment with a termite contractor. Nowhere did I say I was unhappy about price.. no, I was mostly lamenting on my inability to verify the quality and quantity of termiticide used. I have no problem with paying the man for work done, but when I have a fast one pulled on me, it really pisses me off. Do you think it would minimize the number of "fast ones" a termite contractor could pull on the public if he knew that the product he used could be verified? How would it look in a jury trial should one of his customers, who discovered his house had been "treated" with water asked the company to assume the costs of replacing the termite-damaged lumber in his house? Or, am I just being "anti-capitalist" here by suggesting that someone's work be open for verification?

I am delighted to see this in Linux, as I fundamentally do not trust Microsoft. Nor do I trust that mechanic who claims he's going to work on my car, but goes to great lengths to make damn sure I can not observe nor verify his work. And I don't trust that termite guy either. ( But if he had given me a sample in my jug, then upon my suspicion something's wrong, I sent it off to my friend, and he found pyrethrins in the proper strength, my opinion of that contractor today would be completely different. )