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New MythTV Based PVR Available
aotea_Joe writes "OpenMedia is putting together a mad crazy Linux based home media pc. It's DVB-T and HDTV capable, network ready (streaming, control, sharing). Has all the standard PVR features (real time pause, scheduling, listings etc). Plus you own the hardware, get support and get updates/maintenance. Is it too good to be true?"
And check out the prices!!
Funnypics
Does the mythtv people get anything out of this?
What the??? Can we at least create a summary that doesn't sound like someone playing counter strike wrote it?
The site is /.ed already. Is there a record on the fastest speed of a /.ed site?
"...the shortest distance between two points may be straight line, but it is by no means the most interesting."
Is it the mad crazy super duper bomb diggity, for shizzle?
Has all the standard PVR features (real time pause, scheduling, listings etc). Plus you own the hardware, get support and get updates/maintenance. Is it too good to be true?
Some say that the fact that people might believe that MythTV is too good to be true is a myth. But I am not sure, so we are sending some scientists to test it. We can then find out if it indeed exists, observe its behaviour, and how it is supported by its environment. Stay tuned for the real-time results.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
What will TiVo's legal department have to say about this product in jurisdictions where TiVo owns broad patents? Could this be part of the reason why the product isn't shipping to the United States?
Ummmm....not really. If it doesn't support CableCard....MOVE ON...wait I should create a website. Lets call it moveon.org ( blowhards ).
Anyway this is no different than the HP systems that support MCE. Come on get on board and put together some innovation, isn't that what OSS was suppose to be about...but atlas, not really. They just do the same thing as everyone else and just put it in a different package......How many linux distro's do we have again ? If its more than 5 you can NEVER EVER AGAIN complain about MS having to many windows version.
Seriously though if someone is going to repackage MythTV and offer an OSS DVR like that including the hardware it should support cablecard(s).
They are using one as a server while they watch a movie?
I wonder if any of the technology in this makes use of anything patented by Tivo. It should be interesting to see if Tivo ever goes after them.
Maybe they need some network ready servers, first.
I've been running a Myth machine for a while. I think I only paid around $350 (US) for most of the hardware (tuner card, case, hard drive). Of course, the rest of the hardware I came up on loot.
On another note, what happens when HD programs get DRM'd? No more MythTV?
No.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Since the site is down already - did any of the people who got to the site check out support for the broadcast flag?
If cable companies start using the protection with the didital flags would it render this machine useless? I know the TiVo does support it - after it was (un)intentionally turned on some poor user's Family Guy recording.
Down the road will we need to worry about not being able to use our toys if it doesn't fall into the industry's "supported device" list?
MythTV-based systems like OpenMedia will blow DRM-crippled products like Intel's Viiv right out of the water.
I mean, who in their right mind would buy a restrictive system like Viiv when free-as-in-speech OpenMedia systems are available? Of course, the challenge is explaining to consumers why Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) is against their interests, and spreading the word that MythTV-based systems are superior to DRM-crippled offerings.
Get computers and accessories from Linux-friendly manufacturers
In the mythweb page "recorded_programs", how is a non-geek supposed to know what "has commflag: Yes" means? "has cutlist: No". How bout "recgroup"?
Don't get me wrong. I mythtv. In fact, I never watch livetv anymore and don't think I've seen a commercial in over a year. My wife has an xbox on 'her TV' as a mythfrontend to the backend. It's relatively wife-friendly. But it's not ready for the 'out of the box' market yet.
Now, I have been using MythTV for a couple of years now and it works pretty good but it's still really buggy. It's a college project and the inexperience shows (just look at the code if you don't believe me). It crashes or hangs every once in a while and it's really slow considering what it does.
Plus there are no commercial data (schedule) services available. Currently most of use use the Zap2it data labs thing but that is only for non-commercial uses.
http://www.mythtv.org/
As much as I love homebrew PVR's (I use several along with my Tivo) I can't help but think that for most people - the better value would be to just buy a Tivo and a lifetime subscription (and if they no longer offer that, then three years of service). If you want to copy MPEG files over, use Tivo to Go or get a ReplayTV. PC's are sloppy compared to these options.
www.wildpad.com
I've only gotten my HD mythtv setup to 'crazy', acheiving 'mad crazy' is a huge step in the right direction.
Seriously though, not that hard. I have a box that does ATSC and mythtv and displays via DVI to HDMI cable to my TV. (AirStar HD5000 tuner, onboard GeFore 6150 for DVI video). It could do unencrypted QAM channels if I wasn't too much a cheapskate to buy cable.
I would be impressed if they had something that took CableCard or something for encrypted QAM channels on cable.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Few markets advertise cable card support, but they are actually available widespread. We are fast approaching the deadline requiring companies to provide cablecard support (if we haven't hit that deadline already).
Speaking as someone who receives all his television via DVB-T in the UK, I can say that I have zero interest in digital cable.
Looking through an interactive guide for up to a weeks worth of programming and then picking and choosing the content I want recorded, and then forgetting about it.
Well, I suppose I could ask my MythTV box to cut back to only one week's programming but otherwise, that's what I do.
will hold of on wasting any money on concepts like MythTV
My copy of MythTV was free. Sounds like you've been ripped-off.
The Myth is that is can record television,
I appear to have 198GB of mythology on my hard drive, then!
which means that analogue PVR's like this won't work, period.
DVB-T is digital.
Until I can sit back and fire up a PC that displays the same interactive guide data I am currently getting in a proprietary cable box, I don't think these things will find any success.
Good news! You already can!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
where the only way you can record digital cable or HDTV is to connect the cable box to your video in, and hit play and record on two remotes.
Uh, you do realize that it's not only possible, but rather easy, to set up MythTV to work with cable boxes?
Hit play and record on two remotes? What is this, 1980?
Additional Dual Tuner Model Now Available
Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Due to customer demand an additional standard configuration of myPVR has been released.
It appears by far that customers want their "Personal Video Recorders" to have dual tuners. Hence we are please to announce the availability of an additional dual tuner model with the smaller 250GB Hard Drive.
For the average user this HTPC can handle between 100 and 300 hours of TV, dependant on capture quality and the use of myPVR to store other media such as Music, Games and Images.
You will be pleased to know that our current Limited Period special offers sill apply with this new model.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 April 2006 )
Pricing Information Now Online Monday, 10 April 2006 We are very pleased to announce the initial pricing for our standard versions of myPVR 1.0. For a Limited Period we are offering the following special deal -
Software support extended from 3 to 6 months
Free delivery within New Zealand
Onsite install within the Auckland area
Note some conditions apply
This innovative HTPC (Home Theater PC) solution, with all of the features you would expect from a PVR, is now available for the New Zealand consumer.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 April 2006 )
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
for making me giggle at work. :-)
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Speaking as someone who receives all his television via DVB-T in the UK, I can say that I have zero interest in digital cable.
I think a more significant problem is DVB-S support. Speaking as someone who uses Myth with Sky by having an S-video connection between the sky decoder and the Myth box, I would far prefer to just stick a DVB-S card in my Myth system. There are currently 3 problems here:
1. Sky encrypt their channels using VideoGuard and won't produce a CAM to decrypt it. This ties you into using an official Sky branded decoder (which are also completely useless for picking up stuff not covered by Sky). There are 3rd party CAMs available which claim to decrypt VideoGuard but they are relatively expensive (~100ukp) and I suspect the EUCD renders them illegal. I've yet to find a SoftCAM that will work under Linux.
2. DVB-S cards with a common interface are still reasonably pricey compared with DVB-T cards and DVB-S cards which don't have a common interface. This is probably down to lack of demand caused by (1).
3. To record multiple programs at the same time would involve having multiple CAMs and multiple Sky subscriptions. Ideally what would be better is to either do the decoding on playback (like Sky+ does), or (better) do the decoding in a post-processing job much like the commflag and transcoding jobs.
which means that analogue PVR's like this won't work, period.
Well I'm not sure what the GP is smoking here, as you pointed out the PVR being discussed in the article is DVB-T (i.e. digital), however I use my MythTV box with a plain BT878 card in it to record the analogue S-video signal off my Sky box and it works just fine.
Until I can sit back and fire up a PC that displays the same interactive guide data I am currently getting in a proprietary cable box, I don't think these things will find any success.
Infact, I get _better_ guide data through my Myth box than I do through my Sky box. The Sky box gives me a week's worth with often very short descriptions, whereas the Myth box gives me 2 week's worth of listings (pulled from radio times). Additionally, having looked at the Sky+ feature set I'd say my Myth box is a hell of a lot more capable (especially when I hear my sky+ owning friends complain that they missed the first episode of the new series of $foo because sky+ doesn't automatically record it, whilest my Myth box noticed the new series had started and automatically scheduled in the recordings).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Let's be honest here....
MythTV was written by geeks, for geeks, I don't think that there's a lot of debate on that issue.
If a company want's to make & sell a MythTV box and can turn a profit doing it - so much the better, but either way, the MythTV geeks will keep working on the project. [note that it would be nice if some of the profit was forwarded as a donation to the team.]
What they are turning a profit on is not the MythTV software or the hardware. People are going to be paying for the convienence of not having to put it together for themselves. Check out companies that are selling HylaFax fax-servers. There are companies selling Athalon 1800 PC's w/ 4 fax lines & charging $1500 for them. Thats about $400(assuming they arn't using salvaged parts or a high end 4 line modem cards) for the PC & $1100 for configuing it. Not bad money for a job that took me about 4 hours to do the first time(stupid ISA jumpered modems).
...because I want to be like Gandhi and Edison and Amelia Earhart and Jim Henson and Frank Lloyd Wright.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Just because your country is back in the stone age with this kind of stuff, it doesn't mean that everybody else is.
In Europe, subscription services use the DVB standard encryption system, with the access control provided by third-party plug in modules known as CAMs. You buy a CAM off your pay TV provider, chuck it into your satellite / cable box, put the smartcard into it, and it'll work. The system was designed to allow you to use any set top box with any pay TV service, so the standard was part of DVB from the beginning. You can get DVB-S and DVB-C cards that have CAM slots, so it's possible to record subscription TV in Europe.
Basically, this is similar to the US CableCard, except it existed 12 years ago and is supported almost universally.
The UK and Australia don't use it though. As in the US, providers supply their own boxes, which have hard-wired CAMs using an access control system that you can't get (legal) CAMs for. Since both countries have one provider with a total monopoly over pay TV, that's not going to change.
Yea, cable card is there and it is a good thing, but try finding a videocard that accepts a cable card. Here's a hint - they don't exist. And if anyone knows different please let me know.
The only reason I pay for a POS SA8300HD is the ability to record two shows at once on either digital or regular cable. I say POS because on a good day when the wind is blowing in the right direction, the cable gods are feeling good, and the onboard software decides to actually work, I can get all the shows I schedule for recording. It never fails that something I really want to see gets screwed by my 8300 because the interface software is crap. I've been paying to beta test this thing for 4 years because there is no other option thsat works with digital cable. I'm really counting on Tivo's new series 3, which has two cable card slots. I just hope I can aford it.
"I'm just here to regulate funkyness." - James Gandolfini, as Winston in The Mexican
I believe this was making its round couple weeks ago, so skip the crying over dupes..
Pluto - Combines Security, Home Automation, Telecom (and other things) into a single package. Uses bluetooth roaming to follow your audio around your house.. OpenSource, and it also utilizes Myth. I thought Its a neat project.
Link - http://plutohome.com/
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
What planet are you from? In my area there are 8 broadcast stations and many of them are just starting to figure out what subchannels are. The result? 13 distinct programs available at most times of the day - with nothing but some old rabbit ears. That's with the TV. My HD2000 card in the PC is happy to record any of it in nice digital (ATSC) format, but the reciever needs a better antenna than the TV in the other room. That's OK because the house is equiped with an attic antenna from the good old days - it's plugged into the PC. Most the stuff on TV is crap (cable included), so your insistance on paying for cable, and then paying more for digital, and more yet for HD is just beyond me.
If everyone would drop cable, some networks will pick up the few good shows that are currently only on cable. The slots are now available thanks to the subchannels of ATSC.
...does linus get anything from redhat?...
A boner?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Man I thought this was about 2 for $3 PBR's, now you are telling me its about the teli?
Content + Container; Content = Container; Content â Container... which is the question?
I've been using MythTV for about 6 months now and it has completely changed my relationship to TV. I've been able to implement every single feature I want in a PVR (multi-tuner, export to DVD/VCD, cable box control, etc.) However, the one thing that is still lacking is the TV output. I haven't moved to HD yet so I'm using S-video TV output from my video card. The quality is certainly passable, but it is nowhere near the quality coming out of my cable box. Until the capability exists to get the same quality picture (or at least close) out of MythTV or any other roll-your-own PVR, people will be unsatisfied with it. I'm curious to see the quality of the picture coming out of these boxes. Unfortunately, their site seems a bit Slashdotted right now.
The problem with solutions that are not integrated into the cable/satellite box with current technology is that they have to use IR (infrared) controller to change channels. This misses sometimes, making you miss some of your shows. For this reason, I would rather have an inferior interface with a higher reliability, integrated into the unit. This is why I use DirecTV, because they integrate TiVo into their box, and it's like $5/month for the service. It's worth it for the fact that I never miss a scheduled show.
Currently hooked on AMP
Plus you own the hardware, get support and get updates/maintenance. Is it too good to be true?
** Heh. Just like you would if you did it all yourself...oh...wait....are you saying that the open source community isn't good enough "support"?
Yeah okay so then they understand why DRM is annoying. But does it change their habbits in any way? Do they stop buying DVD's? Do they stop buying videos through ITunes? In the end, the media companies will continue to push DRM so long as it's incorporation doesn't adversely affect sales. Unless people connect the dots from DRM to actually doing something that harms the sales of the media companies, it doesn't matter if you convince them DRM sucks.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
What's with the wings on those things. :-)
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
DVB-T... Bleh. Don't care.
If MythTV supported DVB-S (and softcams) then there would be hundreds of thousands of new MythTV installs in North America like instantly! (DishNetwork/Expressvu anyone?). I know lots of people that would buy a new PC for it overnight if it worked (me included).
Until it does (and I'm not waiting), then I'll stick to something else that works (MyTheater/ProgDVB/DVB Dream, etc) and does digital capturing, which is ridiculously better than analog capturing (like using a Hauppauge card). The difference is so huge - like the difference between VHS and DVD (and the DVB card can also capture HD streams, usually 720p @ 13mbit here)
That, and my satellite PVR that also does digital capturing of the transportstream (again, bit for bit, 100% quality recording, 704x480 @ 3mbit, with AC3 5.1 if present - just like using DVB-S cards). And you can rip shows off of the HD too.
If you have Sky, it seems like you're locked into using Sky+ - which admitidally is rather nice and has possibily the next best UI to Tivo (but is still way ahead of everything else out there). However I don't want to pay £15/month for half the channels I want and then an extra £10/month for the subscription to the + service.
For Freeview, you seem to be left with Humax, DigiFusion or Toppy - all of which are substantially lower quality, have a UI with many quirks and all three are lacking "season pass" functionality (hell, on the Humax you can't just select a program and say "record this timeslot every week", you have to set it up from a completely different location).
Although I've not looked very hard, DIY Sky+ appears to be impossible and DIY Freeview appears to be a little on the hacky side.
What do people do?
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
As someone who has been researching "convergence" technologies, and building PC based PVR's in one form or another for easily six years. Have spent enough money in this pusuit on graphics cards alone, to buy a really nice automobile.
The biggest thing that sucks about PC based PVR's, that can't be worked around, is connectivity. Even the best efforts at this will leave you with a pasta-fetival-hodge-podge of wires, cables, sensors, and various remotes. Ground loop filters must be added for clean audio (to and from IO). Then you have to screw around with all the various (possibly) uncooperative software components.
The cabling alone costs more than a stand-alone DVD recorder w/harddrive. Even a simple forty dollar stand-alone DVD player comes with a matching remote, a full set of home entertainment system friendly input and output connections and switching capabilities.
All this money and time I've spent has led me to the conclusion that in order for this kind of sytem to be generally viable. PC's will need better IO interfaces and switching capabilities on par with these stand-alone's. Or someone will need to figure out how to add the neccessary horse power and internal connectivity options to these Stand-Alones. USB/Firewire is helpful in this regard.
On balance it looks to me that the second option would be best overall. However, the core components could not be cobbled together by an end user enthusiast. Some DVD recorder manufacturer would need to build a main board that would allow for upgrading the certain key components (CPU/PowerSupply etc..).
Sigh... regarding the "is it too good to be true?" question... of course it is. The product is only available in New Zealand. I guess I'll try to find an orc or balrog to line one up for me.
The exchange rate appears to be about NZ$1.6 to US$1 [http://www.x-rates.com/d/NZD/USD/graph120.html%5D [x-rates.com] and according to the website the prices are listed in NZD.
So if you're an American (like me! woo-hoo!), you can divide by 1.6.
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
I consider myself rather techie being a senior UNIX admin for a living but Tivo is just too easy. I have better things to do with my time. I also have a wife who doesn't have to ask questions about using Tivo. Occassionly she asks me to save a show to DVD which is outside her skill set.
With Tivo to Go I can make DVDs of my favorite shows easily. I can even remove the commercials using Sonic MyDVD (that is designed to work with Tivo) from a one hour show by hand (accurately vs automated crap) in about 10 minutes.
It's simple, it only crashes or screws up about once every six months and it just works.
Until I discovered TvTorrents.com. Why bother going through all the trouble of recording, waiting for the backend to flag the commercials and transcode to Xvid when I can just subscribe to a RSS feed using Azureus and have the final product appear automatically (almost... you have to manually rescan for them to show up in the list of videos).
In my opinion, this is the future of TV, whether the networks want it or not.
Anybody know who makes the case? I already have a MythTV system based on KnoppMyth. I just need to "beautify" it :-)
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
If someone were to sell a MythTV box to American audiences ... I'd buy one.
Are you willing to order 15 years in advance for the product to be shipped when TiVo's DVR patents run out?
The application layer decides on the DRM. There is no reason you could not optimize linux and MythTV to run on this platform.
Other than that your cable company or satellite company specifies that any application layer that receives its programming must conform to a given DRM spec, right? This will become more important as people begin to demand HDTV DVRs that work in high definition despite image constraints inserted by the publisher on analog outputs. (Many consumer HDTV formats include image constraints such that all analog outputs must be blurred to the equivalent of 540p.)
Unless you just want to tinker with things, just get a TiVo and have something that works. Sure, it's closed, proprietary, evil capitalist pig dog BUT...
If you use a TiVo for a year the component cost of a given custom PVR will drop by the amount you put into the TiVo. You can then decide to stick with TiVo or switch to a custom PVR. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I'm confused. The article summary says "DVB-T capable" which... okay, you could put a DVB card in it I'm sure.
And then a lot of the comments on here are talking about it being a digital PVR and the DVB support. But if you look at the tech specs it says "Hauppauge MPEG2 video capture (single or dual tuner)", which I'm pretty sure means a PVR150 or PVR500 (and later realized I could've just looked at the sales page to figure that out). Then I looked at the features page and get:
"Single or Dual analog tuner capturing at DVD quality." Which seems to back that up. Then they go and throw a wrench in it with:
"Supports DVB-T (subject to availability)."
"Can record off your existing Sky Decoder (optional additional feature)."
So it appears that the digital is probably an option, rather than standard configuration.
What I REALLY don't understand is how any of these MythTV preconfigured system companies are staying in business (if they are anyway...). Look at the price they're charging for a single analog tuner system. $1500NZD (~$950USD)
For $950 you can (should) do way better than a single tuner.
1. Sky encrypt their channels using VideoGuard and won't produce a CAM to decrypt it. This ties you into using an official Sky branded decoder (which are also completely useless for picking up stuff not covered by Sky). There are 3rd party CAMs available which claim to decrypt VideoGuard but they are relatively expensive (~100ukp) and I suspect the EUCD renders them illegal. I've yet to find a SoftCAM that will work under Linux.
Assuming the CAMs in questions are not sold or intended to be used with counterfeit subscriber cards or remove restrictions present in SKY's boxes, I am not aware of any provision of the copyright directive that would prevent you from buying, selling or using such CAMs. Am I missing anything?
nobody asked you, Blackie McBlackity.
They are available. I have one. Now all I need is an capture card that can use a CableCard. And guess what? There aren't any.
And that, my friend, is the bigger issue.
http://www.interact-tv.com/
Better prices, no fees (yo!), upgradeable storage, add tuners, soon to support HDTV
Check out MonolithMC if you are looking for a MythTV System in the USA. They currently have dual tuner models, but support IR Blasters, Serial and Firewire channel changing at a reasonable price! I'm looking into one for a 2nd mythtv box and the price is very reasonable. Maybe an HD solution will be around shortly too.
- Fully support HD-DVD / Blu Ray via an external USB drive
- HDTV DVR
- Support for the new Viiv services
- Everything works "out of the box" without any tinkering
So far I haven't seen a HTPC that will do all of the above.No, I will not work for your startup
First up the reason some of these features are optional is they haven't officially been launched in New Zealand at this stage. I'm using a DVB-T tuner on my test bed but I can only get 2 channels on it, instead of the 9 I can get on my usual analogue ariel.
Secondly the only way to reduce price would be to reduce the feature set. The local component prices here in New Zealand are a lot hight than the US. Trade price here is often a lot more than US retail price. For the level of hardware included, plus for the supported install of MythTV we feel the prices are quite reasonable.
As for digital only being an option, depends on your definition. The unit includes Composite, SVideo, VGA and DVI connectivity as standard, plus can play the majority of media found on the internet. Digital capture is optional because not everyone in NZ has Sky, and at present that is the only digital service.
OpenMedia Limited - Home of NZ's first OpenSource PVR http://www.openmedia.co.nz