Linux Looms Large in DVRs, PVRs

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at LinuxDevices there's a new fanless digital entertainment center reference design based on Linux and the MythTV open source DVR (digital video recorder) software. The 'Royal Linux Media Center' runs ESG's Royal Linux OS on a Transmeta development board based on its Efficeon chip. Linux has been increasingly popular in DVRs and PVRs, with examples including TiVo (of course), HP's recently unveiled Linux media hub, i3's Mood box, Interact-TV's Telly, Siemens' Speedstream, VWB's MediaReady 4000, Amino's AmiNet500, Sharp's Galileo, Dream-Multimedia-Tv's Dreambox, NEC's AX10, and Sony's CoCoon, to name a few."

Comments

well and good

[tuxter]

That's all well and good, but does it run Linux?
Oh, fuck it!

Might DRM be the mighty blow?

[PornMaster]

Linux is well poised for the appliance market... but I have to wonder when DRM and the DMCA will make it difficult, if not impossible, to provide the services on Linux needed to compete in the media space if DRM gets in the way. The simple way, I guess, is to put the DRM enforcement into hardware, but I think that leaves us all worse off in the end.

Can any of these

[testing124]

Play WMV9 ?

Dish Network

[Microlith]

IIRC, Dish also uses linux in all of their set top boxes, including their DVR units.

So yeah, linux seems seriously popular in the various DVRs that are available. Is there a source that lists known hacks/mods available for them?

Make it, I'll buy it

[pchan-]

Someone out there make a streamlined tivo-like box (using the reference board above), having the following properties:

1) Slick design. Not a computer in a funny case, something with a home electronics feel. Fanless!
2) Good remote control.
3) Hardware MPEG4 encoding/decoding
4) Open source tivo-like software (not mythtv, something usable).
5) Quality TV output and sound hookups.
6) Open firmware (no DRM, no proprietary files, no restrictions, hardware documentation provided).
7) Ethernet and/or wifi and/or USB.

I'll buy it. I'll buy two, one for my parents. It should work out of the box like a tivo, but be hackable by anyone that desires to do so. Make your money selling the hardware, not subscriptions. The community will take care of improving the software (which will make your hardware even more attractive).

DREAMBOX is AWESOME

[cRueLio]

I have a Dreambox and let's just say that it has some *ahem* special capabilities when it comes to satellite television. And of course, it runs Linux (currently an unpatched 2.6.9-rc1 ppc kernel). Good stuff.
It's DVR capabilities are also improving daily, thanks to an active CVS repository where Enigma, (which is like MythTV) is being developed by people all over the world.
Visit my forum Open Dreambox North America for specific info for usage in the states and canada :)

Neat, but in violation of patent laws.. ie illegal

[oblique303]

This reference design is neat, but any commercial implementation would be in violation of international patent law.

MythTV currently relies on libavcodec on the backend to do video compression/decompression. The libavcodec library implements the various MPEG compression algorithms, which are *very* vigerously protected by the LA MPEG patent pool group.

Any commercial implementation of a DVR using MythTV would be at extreme risk of prosecution by the LA MPEG group for unauthorized usage of the MPEG patents.

It would be very nice to see MythTV transitioned to use the Theora (www.theora.org) video codec, as this is a patent-free video compression / decompression library.

Re:and still no ATI AIW support

[MBCook]

Blame ATI. Hauppage supports Linux. I don't know if they write the drivers, or if they just tell people what they need to know, but the drivers are there.

Your beef is with ATI. I have an All-In-Wonder 3D Pro AGP 8mb card. This is from when AGP was first introduced. Pentium II era. There is STILL no decent TV input support that I could even find under Linux. It was a ton of hacking and messing around with beta/cvs drivers the last time I looked (a few months ago). If ATI would make the drivers so you could use your card, things would be fine. They make bianary closed source drivers so you can use 3D, why can't they do it for TV input too? Ask 'em, I'd like to know the answer. They also refuse to tell people what they need to know to make the apropriate video capture drivers, let alone 3D and such.

The solution? Buy video capture stuff from Hauppage, or anyone else who supports Linux. Buy 3D stuff from nVidia (who at least gives great 3D support for all their cards) or someone else who supports their cards well under Linux (Matrox has good Linux drivers, don't they?).

In short: DON'T BUY ATI FOR LINUX USE. It's that simple.

Re:Neat, but in violation of patent laws.. ie ille

[dtperik]

MythTV currently relies on libavcodec on the backend to do video compression/decompression.

Unless you use a card that does encoding/decoding in hardware, no? Then MythTV is just dumping the MPEG data stream back and forth from the HD. Like the system I'm building using the Hauppage PVR-350.