Sony's Linux DVR Can Record Two Weeks of TV

DoctorNo writes "Sony will introduce - in Japan only - a Linux based video recorder in early November which can store 342 hours of content with 500GB of hard drive space. As well as the highend machine, Sony will also offer a cut down version with a 250GB drive. They will be priced at $1380(500GB) and $1035(250GB). More information, specs , and pictures (Japanese). Add another to the list of consumer Linux devices..."

Comments

You're forgetting ...

[burgburgburg]

the $699 US to SCO.

Please be more careful next time.

Are these TiVos?

[Andy Dodd]

Considering that Sony and Philips used to be the manufacturers of TiVo units, and TiVos are Linux-based - Are these just new TiVos with huge hard drives?

Thats a lot of bananas

[stratjakt]

Close to 1500 for a suped up VCR. Ouch.

I have a question, would you all be as excited about yet another PVR, would this be newsworthy, if it ran Windows CE or anything other than linux?

And why does it not bother anyone that the OSS community will get nothing out of this, like improved video capture drivers for your linux box?

Re:Thats a lot of bananas

[mark_lybarger]

first off, how do you know they're not providing patches back?

secondly, it is good for the community. it shows that the cost of using a linux implementation is more effective than using another (windows) implementation. these companies don't have to pay licensing fees (go to hell SCO) for every box they sell, or some huge development licensing fee.

sure the TCO's have different aspects with the different os's. the TCO of a .NET .vs. a j2ee implementation also has different aspects and depending on the project requirements (longjevity .vs. quick to market perhaps), the technologies will fall into place.

linux makes sense for consumer devices.

2 weeks of tv...

[cetan]

Or, after you remove the commercials, about 24 real hours...

Priceless...

[MrLizardo]

Slick micro-atx case: $59
Athlon and mainboard with integrated sound/video: $160
2x 250GB harddrives: $500

The Sony logo to put on it: priceless

For everything else there's a cheap x86 box.

-AX

Warning.. DRM trap ahead.

[wackybrit]

The device comes with a mandatory 'automatic purge' feature. Each recording is marked by a timestamp on disk and thirty one days after a recording has been made, it is automatically deleted. This feature fits in with Japanese copyright rules.

Oh great, what next? A 'will not record porn because it's not good for the children' feature? When will consumers get treated like adults? This sucks about as much as the end of Jeepers Creepers 2 where all the people except the hot chick die.

Re:2 weeks?! But but....why?

[stratjakt]

Why in the world would you want 2 weeks of TV?

Because Comcast screwed up and gave you the Spice Channel. You want to capture as much as possible before they realize their mistake.

a possible market

[Savatte]

the average consumer doesn't need this, but a business might. Imagine being able to record 2 weeks worth of security footage without having to change a tape.

My Japanese is be getting better.

[twoslice]

More information, specs , and pictures (Japanese).

I can't make out any of the information or specs but hey, it seems I am fully fluent in looking at Japanese pictures. And I never even took lessons!

Ahh the beauty of the 'fish

[trellick]

this is what babelfish kindly gave to me

* Keyword just is registered, gathers favorite program,new "entrust roundly record 2".
* You study the taste, the favorite so being automatic, you videotape program,"the male be completed algorithm".
* Ground wave 2 tuner loading which corresponds to CATV. 2 programs where broadcast is piled up can be recorded simultaneously,"2 program simultaneous video recordings".
* Relay of the baseball and the soccer becoming extension, without letting escape, you can record,"baseball extended corresponding function".
* Without overlapping it can videotape can reserve continual drama and animation"series reservation".
* It can enjoy to seamless also program and the still picture which are video recording program and in the midst of broadcasting"MyCast view".
* The attachment remote control which adheres to ease of use, actualizes comfortableoperativity.
* with cooperating, recording favorite video recordingprogram to DVD.
* Bulk hard disk loading which records favorite program and the program which becomes matter of concern, steadily and is accumulated."

What does "entrust roundly record " mean?
Sounds nice tho'!!

Re:Well...

[pubjames]

I hate to be the horse and buggy guy BUT I don't need 2 weeks of television recorded.

Perhaps your thinking about it in the wrong way. Imagine stitting down in the evening and wondering - "I wonder if there was anything good on the movie channel* today that I might like to watch" rather than "I wonder if there is anything on right now that I might like to watch".

It sounds cool to me, even more so if you are fussy about what you watch on TV.

(* or BBC One or whatever is your preferred channel.)

Moore's Law

[cyber_rigger]

15 years from now PVRs will hold more information than we could watch in a lifetime

Re:Thanks Sony

[karmawarrior]

You actually raise quite a serious point. Technical advantages in various countries are often limited to the people who live in those countries, and it's hard for both insiders and outsiders to share in those benefits. In Sony's case, this hardware requires a huge amount of investment for each market they intend to serve. Even Sony has to look at the bottom line and the immediate short-term future and determine whether a massive, cashflow squeezing, expansion is worth doing in the short term.

Technology needs to become more universal, but its expense in implementation costs makes that hard to do. If you, in the US, are having problems enough getting hold of this kind of thing, can you imagine how hard it is for someone in, say, Russia, Egypt, or Australia, to gain access? And yet there's no technical reason why they shouldn't, and there are people within those nations who can afford such equipment and see it as worth while. But we limit the marketing of technologies, slavishly obeying arbitrary national borders, because of the difficulties associated with expansion.

Expanding means creating new marketing networks and providing the means of transporting this equipment to other countries. This is expensive, though if done with a shared spirit of cooperation and determination, there's no reason why, say, an open distribution network shared by any number of vendors, might not make such things possible. Such a network is, for all intents and purposes, impossible, because it relies upon there already being a large enough momentum towards unfettered distribution to work.

This quagmire of national boundaries restricting the flow of goods and services will not disappear by itself. Unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Write also to Jack Valenti, the CEO and chair of the MPAA, whose address and telephone number can be found at the About the MPAA page. Write too to Bill Gates, Chief of Technologies and thus in overall charge of systems like Windows NT, at Microsoft. Tell them that technologies and spreading the good they do to everyone, not just those in the very largest first world countries, is important to you. Tell them that open, standardized, distribution networks would help open up the free export of technologies across the world, bettering mankind. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by individual manufacturers and individual store chains to try and provide some of this functionality but that if the insistance of exclusivity and the lack of standardization in business practices are not dealt with you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how a lack of a free and open technology distribution network harms all three. Let your legislators know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies concerning the distribution of technologies to everyone.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.