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Linux-PVR Distribution LinVDR 0.7 Released

Mirko Doelle writes "LinVDR is a very small Linux distribution turning your normal PC with a DVB video card into a rather cool personal video recorder (PVR). 'The Busybox based system requires less than 128 MB disk space and is shipped as compressed bootable CD image (31 MB) with an easy install program. Provided that you have a supported DVB card (Technotrend DVB Premium or Hauppauge Nexus) in your system, you'll get the software up and running running within 15 minutes or less. LinVDR uses the most recent development version of the Video Disk Recorder software VDR from Klaus Schmidinger. VDR is capable of recording more than one channel per time (as MPEG-2), timeshifting, cutting (with your remote control) and converting the MPEG-2 files into other formats. The 39 plugins delivered in LinVDR extend your PVR to be also a DVD player, DVD recorder, E-Mail reader, Voice mailbox and much more. Details on the software versions and plugins you can find at the project page. For download, visit the mirror list.'"

13 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Voicemail? by geckofiend · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try MythPhone, it's getting close if not there already. Plus it allows video conferencing on your TV.

  2. Re:This Doesn't Work for the U.S. Does it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a user community in the US, have a look at http://www.hoochvdr.info/

  3. Here is a copy of the project page. by Goodbyte · · Score: 4, Informative
    What for hell is LinVDR

    Basically, it's an approach to build a small, cut to the bone, ready and easy to install VDR Linux distribution.
    LinVDR is a complete, breathing Linux system smaller than 128 MB with a complete digital Video Disk Recorder (VDR) / Personal Video Recorder (PVR) and several plugins -- listed seperately below.
    For easy access we installed additionaly the browser frontend VDR Admin and a Samba share for up- and downloading music or DVD images with Windows clients.

    The base system is Debian Woody compatible (only compatible, not Debian Woody itself!) with the DVB driver from Convergence and Klaus Schmidingers unbeated Video Disk Recorder Software VDR.
    All this Tom has mixed smoothly together, and I made the install system and installation programme -- suitable for normal users without Linux knowledge.

    OK, sounds good. I have a XYZ tv card and a GeForce 10 with TV out. Lets start.

    That's nice you have such expensive hardware, but it won't bring you a step closer to a running LinVDR system. We're here at digital TV, there is no purpose for any analog TV cards.

    VDR was designed to work with so-called full featured DVB cards. This is a Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) receiver card originally develloped from Technotrend. Hauppauge adopted these cards and labeled them WinTV DVB-s/C or Nexus.

    The important point of this cards: Byside the receiving unit, where you can read a MPEG-2-Stream, they're equipped with a DSP chip working as MPEG-2 decoder and OSD creator. This DSP decodes the steam, overlays the menu and put the result to the composite video out of the DVB card.

    This means: You don't need a graphic card with TV out, your full featured DVB card already has one (and only this one is used by VDR).

    But you need only one of that expensive (> $150) full featured DVB cards. If you want to install a second one, e.g. to enable you to receive more channels at the same time, you can use a so-called budget card.

    These buget cards have no TV out and no MPEG-2 decoder, making them a lot cheaper (around $70).

    Type Vendor Model Class Price DVB-S Hauppauge WinTV Nexus-s Full Featured abt. $250 DVB-S TechnoTrend DVB-S Sat PCI
    Rev. 1.3, 1.5, 1.6 Full Featured abt. $190 DVB-T TechnoTrend DVB-T Rev. 1.2 Full Featured abt. $250 DVB-C Hauppauge WinTV DVB-C Full Featured abt. $300 DVB-C TechnoTrend DVB-C Rev. 2.1 Full Featured abt. $230 DVB-S Hauppauge WinTV Nova-S Budget abt. $125 DVB-S TechnoTrend Budget DVB-S Budget abt. $90 DVB-T TechnoTrend DVB-T 1300 Budget abt. $110 DVB-C TechnoTrend DVB-C Rev. 1.0 Budget abt. $110

    To cut it short: You need one full featured card with MPEG-2 decoder (Technotrend style, supported by the DVB driver of Kernel 2.6) and any number of budget cards (supported by the same drivers). No way to use your graphic adapter or analog TV card, if you're looking for an analog PVR, try e.g. MythTV.

    VDR Version and Plugins VDR 1.3.17 with enAIO-Patch and this plugins:

    • Autotimer-Edit 0.1.4 new
    • DVD-Burn 0.0.5 new
    • Clock 0.0.5b1 update
    • Console 0.6 update
    • DVD 0.3.5b06 (without CSS support)
    • EPG-Search 0.0.3 new
    • Femon (signal strength) 0.1.6 update
    • Games 0.6.1 update
    • GraphLCD 0.1.1 update
    • GraphTFT 0.0.8 new
    • Hello 0.1.0
    • Image (Diashow) 0.2.2 update
    • LCD-Proc 0.0.10 update
    • Mailbox 0.3 update
    • Manual 0.0.2 (german only) new
    • Media-MVP 0.1.5 new
    • Media-MVP-Server new
    • M-LCD 0.0.4 update
    • MP3 0.9.8 update
    • MPlayer 0.9.8 update
    • OSD-Demo 0.1.0
    • Osd-PiP Plugin 0.0.7 update
    • OSD-Teletext 0.3.1 update
    • Pilot 0.0.7 new
  4. Re:Useful for recording video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't forget Freevo... works great!

  5. nsfw by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    last link is not safe for work (and in really poor taste)

  6. Re:Useful for recording video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    MOD PARENT DOWN!

    Link to tinyurl.com is the goatse.cx image!

  7. Mirrors Here - Pages and ISO by Kinetic · · Score: 3, Informative

    Looks like a Slashdotting has killed the site. Of course, MirrorDot has the pages and the ISO image mirrored.

    --
    ~Jay
  8. MythTV allows HD recordings by dowobeha · · Score: 3, Informative
    I know this is a bit tangential to your comment, but I'm hoping that if it doesn't help you, it might help others reading this thread.

    Another Linux-based PVR will allow you to record HD. The catch is that it only records HD over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts. So if you live in an area with HD broadcasts (at the least, most major metro areas in the U.S.), and you have an antenna, you can have an HD-capable MythTV PVR.

    The card is the pcHDTV 3000, available at http://www.pchdtv.com/.

    The MythTV web site is http://mythtv.org.

    For info about HD and MythTV, search the MythTV mailing list archive for "hdtv" or "pcHDTV".

    Finally, a step-by-step install guide for MythTV is available here.

    --
    I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
  9. Mirror of the site by randomErr · · Score: 2, Informative
    --
    You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
  10. Re:This Doesn't Work for the U.S. Does it? by homer_ca · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, this project is only for Europe because DVB is the European broadcast HDTV standard. The U.S. standard is ATSC. If you want an internal HDTV tuner card for the U.S. ATI makes the HDTV Wonder, but it has bad reviews. Also, DVB and ATSC are broadcast standards. These tuners won't work with cable or satellite.

  11. Re:This is absolutely WORTHLESS!!! by kswtch · · Score: 2, Informative

    > It DOES NOT handle HDTV signals.

    You can record HDTV Movies with LinVDR. All you have to do is to add a HDTV Channel to your channel list and set up a timer for it. And, you have to disable processing your output video signal. Your DVB Card can not handle the resolution and will crash. (Reboot of the card needed). If you save the HDTV data stream to your disk without forwarding it to your v/output you can watch the show.
    If you do not want to waste disk space you can stream the data to your Local Network (or loopback device) and watch it with mplayer.

  12. Re:This Doesn't Work for the U.S. Does it? by Cromac · · Score: 2, Informative
    When I last looked at that project it only seemed to apply to Europe and maybe the U.K. All because our crankass digital TV providers (DirecTV and various Digital Cable providers) are too tightass to allow computers to decode their encrypted signal legally. So instead we have to use external tuners and LiRC or break the law if we want to have computer based PVRs. Pathetic, isn't it?

    I don't know about pathetic, but it is a pain in the ass...also not an insurmountable problem. Spend $25 on a IR blaster and you can have your PVR software change the channels on the external tuner just fine with GB-PVR and I think MythTV.

  13. Re:This Doesn't Work for the U.S. Does it? by Nik13 · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're wrong. DVB-S *IS* for satellite. Been using it with north american sats for a few years already. What it won't work with is the couple sats companies not using DVB (DTV and *C), or "new" encoding like turbo coded 8PSK (I say new as they're starting to use it, but it's actually already obsolete)

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