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A Ready-Made MythTV Set-Top Box in Australia

Posted by timothy on from the plug-and-go dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "Australian Personal Computer magazine published a review of a new all-in-one set-top-box based on linux. A quick analysis of the device yields some cheats/hacks that not only allow you to enable the advertisment skipping feature they disabled, but could allow system compromise. The system also runs a GPL version of MythTV - anyone else see any licensing issues?" Only if they don't follow the GPL.

5 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Atomic by haRDon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Atomic Magazine this month had a cover CD featuring a modified Knoppix distro for MythTV. Haven't checked it out yet, but looks quite interesting.

    1. Re:Atomic by squaretorus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This seems like an idea that the UK publishing industry is missing a trick with.

      Publish a rather mediocre low cost of production Linux / OS / general computer magazine but put high quality recent Knoppix etc... on the cover disk to save people downloads / ordering a 3 CD (which you never get round to doing).

      Get a reputation for bundling nice things and I'd subscribe for 30-40 a year with no troubles. GIve me a few well written articles, throw a few quid at some OSS dev teams from time to time and the fluffiness gets even better.

      How many people continued to buy Computer Shopper and the like for the 3 or 4 pages which were actually an interesting read long after the rest of the magazine went to shit??

      Emap - if you steal this idea I'll be quite pleased!

  2. I find SageTV to be even better by buddydawgofdavis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I no longer use my old Series 1 tivo. The hacks are nice, but with something based on a PC, the sky's the limit.

    Currently, I'm using SageTV It's a PC based DVR software package. With it, I can currently;

    - Record two standard def stations, and a high def station at the same time while watching a fourth video of any type. (Obviously, this requires having two tuners and an HDTV tuner.)
    - Record standard TV to MPEG-2, MPEG-1, or just about any other format. This makes it easier to make VCDs, DVDs, or just play the program back on a standard PC.
    - Playback using Dscalar to deinterlace the video.
    - Play DVDs
    - Play DivX
    - Record shows as favorites (just like season passes) or let SageTV record things based on my past viewing habits (much like tivo's suggestions only I don't have to bother with thumbs up and down buttons)
    - Do all of the above with an integrated schedule, which is free. No need to pay a monthly fee.
    - Play and manage my MP3 library (I think you can do ogg, ape, etc. with some tweaks to the config)
    - Stream video and audio to another PC over my LAN.

    I'm sure I'm missing much more. This thing does way more than any tivo, even a hacked tivo, and it's constantly being expanded. It surpasses TiVo and ReplyTV in every way. I've even found it to be more flexible than MythTV and Showstopper (though they do have a few benefits in some areas.)

  3. Re:1800 austalian dollars by NailedSaviour · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "That's 1,300 US dollars. Lets just say that it isn't ever going to be a competitor to Tivo."

    Which, unfortunately, doesn't really address the issue as TiVo (or any other DVR) is not available in Australia. Even Microsofts' WME is not available here yet. Personally I reckon there is a market for this device and as soon as I manage to collect enough lunch money to order one I am going to.

  4. Considering.... by the_argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That the creator of Myth TV is currently out of work, I would like to see some type of money go to him from this.