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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?"
Is it the mad crazy super duper bomb diggity, for shizzle?
Does the mythtv people get anything out of this?
No but these people need to look at the zap2it guide information download terms of use. They can't sell something for profit that downloads from their free service.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
They are using one as a server while they watch a movie?
Like Californians.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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.
Why (in the absence of a non /.ed TFA) do people assume its using Zap2it? I think that is US only anyway.
Note they said it supports DVB-T (Thats digital terrestrial TV outside the US). Don't know about NZ but in the UK there is a free 7-day EPG broadcast with the DVB-T signal which MythTV happily grabs.
Plus MythTV supports xmltv which can scrape listings from a variety of websites worldwide.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
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
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?
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
Setup time might be less than an hour for you but not for the mass market that can't stop the clock from blinking on their VCR. Do you really think the average Tivo owner can build their own DVR, especially using Linux, in less than an hour? Not a chance.
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
Of course, the challenge is explaining to consumers why Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) [eff.org] is against their interests,
That's actually very easy. You start with something they're familiar with:
"Don't you hate it when you have to sit through all that crap at the beginning of a DVD before you can watch the movie?" "That's digital rights management at work!"
Then you can explain how DVD player manufacturers are forced to sign an agreement stating that their players will allow Hollywood executives and lawyers to determine what you can and can't do in your living room. Anyone who makes a DVD player that circumvents Hollywood's protections, or otherwise helps you to do what would otherwise be perfectly legal, will run afoul of the DMCA.
Then you can move on to other things like the broadcast flag that will be used to determine wether or not you even get to record a show to watch later, or the restrictions on newer HD DVD players that will determine for you wether you get to watch the movie you bought at its full resolution on the expensive TV you bought.
In short, DRM allows movie and music producers to dictate what you can and can't do with stuff you pay for. Its not about preventing piracy (that's the herring that sells) its about controlling what the consumer can do after the sale.