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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
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.
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