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Dreambox DM7000: Hackable DVR
An anonymous reader copies-and-pastes "The Dreambox DM7000 from Dream-Multimedia-Tv (DMM) is a $395 Linux-based digital radio and digital TV (DVB) satellite (or cable) receiver with digital video recorder (DVR) functions and PC connectivity. It is implemented using IBM's STB04500 set-top box chipset, which provides the necessary DVB functions like transport stream demultiplexing and MPEG2 decoding inexpensively. A minimalistic, GPL'd Linux-based software implementation has made the DM7000 popular with Linux programmers and TV device hackers."
Dreambox software is partial GPL the kernel modules which drives many devices are closed source and developed by IBM... IBM was the company defending the GPL open way? err...
What a flash-back
Look, it's pretty simple:
1. Jennifer Garner of Alias has lots of super-cute freckles.
2. Those super-cute freckles are only visible on the local HDTV broadcast.
3. This box doesn't do HDTV.
Luckily, there is an ATSC receiver card that's for Linux only that does do HDTV. And Jennifer Garner. And her super-cute freckles. And yes, it's quite hackable, and source is included.
'nuff said.
There's also MythTV and Freevo.
Both are fairly immature, but moderately stable. MythTV in particular is feature-rich, but most of the features don't behave quite right.
I'd recommend giving them a try, and maybe contributing of any one is interested, but I don't see any OSS replacing the TiVo quite yet.
You may disagree, but to be blunt, you're wrong. -tgd
Each vendor has their own proprietary encryption format (for the content) and will only work with QPSK and QAM headend equipment that they manufacture. There is very little unencrypted content on CATV networks as digital service is generally an extra charge service. You also need to be provisioned in their billing system.
I suspect that the hackability of this unit stops at controlling the behavior of the device. I would be very surprised if anyone managed to receive free pay services the way those who built sync inverters, tone strippers, etc to receive free analog pay channels.
Please let me know if anyone has success!
Actually, you can use a Tivo without paying the monthly (or lifetime) fee. You don't get the program guides, season pass functionality, and suggestions, but it works as well as a VCR when you schedule to record at a date/time/duration (without tapes), and still lets you pause and replay live TV.
The monthly/lifetime fee gets you the premium services, which are all based on having the program guide available. Well worth the cost, IMO.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
even though it costs them nothing when you use it
how does it cost them nothing? let's break it down:
o guide information has to come from somewhere. in tivo's case, they outsource
o bandwidth for guide information needs to come from somewhere, also outsourced
o upgrades, bug fixes, and new versions of the OS need to come from somewhere. things still cost money
it's obvious that it costs them nothing to me, how about you?
This looks like it has potential, but it still comes with a huge downside - the device isn't a TiVo.
There's a reason that TiVo is the most popular. The user interface is a pleasure to use. A lot of the fun of hacking your TiVo is that you're making that cool box better..
Plus, there's something unexplainably more-fun-than-it-should-be about modifying a device that wasn't designed for it..
If you want to play around with this but still want to be able to enjoy a great DVR, consider buying a TiVo to hack instead (or hacking the TiVo you already have).
Might I also humbly sugest picking up a copy of the book Hacking TiVo , which ships next week. (In all fairness, I am the author, so I might have a bit of a bias). You can also go to the web on your own to find everything, but this acts as a nice guide from your initial tinkering through to the development of your own hacks.
Hacking this device instead could definitely be interesting - it's just sad that you'd be stuck using it if it was your only DVR.
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
The answer is "both". It used to work fine without the subscription, and that was allowed under the EULA for the software on the device.
However, at some point (around 2.3?) they changed the EULA and stated that a subscription was required to use it - at all.
They grandfathered in everyone who purchased before that date, so you can still buy a used TIVO that works without the subscription, but new ones technically require one. There may be a way to work around it on the new ones, but it's not going to be supported by TIVO.
All that being said... get the subscription. It's worth it for all the time it saves and the number of times it "catches" changes that you would miss if you had to do it all manually. If you can't stand monthly, get the lifetime and pretend the device is more expensive.