Linux Hackers Offered Early Access to Next-Gen DVR

An anonymous reader writes "Linux hackers are being given the first crack at beta units and early release versions of a new Linux-powered DVR. The new device, available from Neuros Technology, is able to record MPEG-4 video from many media sources including cable, broadcast TV, and DVDs allowing the user to then transfer that video to portable media players or serve the media over a network. From the article: 'Neuros says "hundreds" of open source community members helped finalize the OSD's design. About two dozen purchased an early hardware prototype earlier this year. Partly to thank the community, and partly as a way of getting the device into the hands of highly critical users early on, Neuros will offer an initial "beta" production run exclusively to hackers.'"

Comments

DVR I/O

[neonprimetime]

12Mbps USB 2.0 interface
SD/MMC/MemoryStick, Pro, Duo socket
CF socket supporting I/O mode
RS-232 serial console port (also used for controlling tuner boxes)
10/100 Mbps Ethernet
Infrared detector for remote control
Infrared blaster for controlling tuner boxes
NTSC/PAL composite or S-Video input
NTSC/PAL composite video output

Re:Mmm, DVR.

[Nos.]

What you do with the signal after it comes out of your digital cable box is up to you. Hook up myth or any of the other PVRs you can find out there. You can definitely put one together for less than $750.

Re:Mmm, DVR.

[hwyengr]

Actually, the FCC forces your cable company to provide access for 3rd party devices to work on their networks, via the CableCard mandate. Unfortunately for you, the only (non-discontinued) CableCard ready DVR was just released by TiVo, and costs $799.

IR Blaster

[Kadin2048]

I think most TiVO units have "IR Blasters" which are little dongles that go over the IR port on your cableco's box, and switch the channel and otherwise control it.

So basically, you "watch" the output from the TiVO on your monitor/television, and do all your programming and stuff. When the TiVO wants to get a particular signal from the cable box, either so you can watch it live or so it can record it, it sends a signal via the IR blaster into the cable box, switching the channel.

I don't know how reliable they are, and the whole thing reeks of 'kludge' to me, but I know some friends that swear by this setup.

Personally, I think it's too bad that nobody thought to mandate some sort of standardized control interface for cable and TV tuners; a serial port on the back of those DTV boxes would make all the IR stuff unnecessary.

Re:IR Blaster

[Anonymous Coward]

What? That's just dumb. Go think about what you just said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video

Corporate PR

[SuperBanana]

Partly to thank the community, and partly as a way of getting the device into the hands of highly critical users early on, Neuros will offer an initial "beta" production run exclusively to hackers

Bzzzt, I'll take "corporate PR lines" for $500, Alex.

This is to:

• "get the devices to highly technical users who will find all the bugs Neuros didn't before it gets shipped to the grandmas and grandpas of the world" Meanwhile, they get a lot of leeway for simply slapping a "beta" label on it.
• get them around any brand-wide or device distribution agreements to garner them a bunch of direct sales (which are worth their weight in gold, since you're not paying a distributor- yes, even if you discount the "beta" version under the retail by a fair bit. Distributors take a BIG cut.)
• get the bloggers posting (more like bragging) about how they got a device, how cool it is, etc. This gets everyone else reading the blogs whipped into a frenzy so that when they DO go on sale, everyone ignores the magazines if the thing isn't ACTUALLY the best device since the bread slicer. Apple's strategy (namely, a complete lockdown on ANY product details before it goes on sale) is similar; whip people into a pre-ordering frenzy and ship ship ship before anyone has so much as touched it.

This is a calculated PR move first and foremost; anything a corporation does is motivated almost exclusively in self-interest (more appropriately, the interests of the shareholders.) Anything about "thanking the community" is a secondary (or lower) concern. If they wanted to thank the community, they'd fold back bug fixes, feature additions, and technical innovation into the open-source software they are (no doubt) using.

Re:Corporate PR

[JoeBorn]

Speaking for Neuros, we are folding back bug fixes, and feature additions into the open source software we're using. In fact, the applications we've written ourselves are GPL too. There's a little more here than standard corporate schtick: http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/theneuros/index.p hp/Developer_Welcome

Nice, But 10 Years Too Late

[Junior Samples]

Detailed specifications can be found here http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/Neuros_ OSD

I'm in the market for a High Defintiton media recorder / player. I want to be able to capture an ATSC broadcast stream and record it to hard drive and later to DVD in MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 format and play it back to my high definition monitor.

This product is about 10 years behind the marketplace because it only supports NTSC and PAL.

They're available here

[PitaBred]

At ThinkGeek (apparently exclusively)

Re:Almost worthy..

[JoeBorn]

I'm from Neuros, we talked about a display but decided a small one wasn't worth much and a big one was too expensive. We've focused more on a two way wifi remote ala Sonos, or the Creative audio streamer. So we'll be addressing the "music without a TV" with a "remote" control like that.

A little more disclosure is needed in this story

[BigVig209]

Both Svartalf (2997) and markwalling (863035) mention it, but, to re-iterate, this product is being offered exclusively through Thinkgeek.

It seems slightly disingenuous to post a story from another website, http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4532837874.html , about the Neuros OSD DVR without mentioning that Thinkgeek and Slashdot are owned by the same company and that Thinkgeek is the sole distributor for now.

A quick disclaimer would be probably be appropriate in the future.

Neuros stranded THIS user...

[PRMan]

I have one of the first Neuros Audio MP3 players and was promised a USB 2.0 upgrade as soon as the spec was finished and access to the loading software and the firmware as open source code.

As far as the USB 2.0, I was supposed to know that when they offered an ALPHA version (not BETA, ALPHA) of the USB 2.0 dock online that I was supposed to jump on it. No e-mails, no notification, I was just supposed to know somehow that the ALPHA version was my free upgrade. As soon as the USB 2.0 dock was finalized, I called them up and asked for one, since I bought it during the appropriate time period. They responded that I missed my window to upgrade for free. I responded that when I bought the player, they didn't say they were going to give me an ALPHA USB 2.0 dock, the implication was that I would get a fully-tested one. Eventually, they agreed to ship me one for a very reduced price. It never worked. I was finally refunded minus 2-way shipping (over $50 on a $250 player).

They NEVER provided the firmware as open-source code even though that was prominently displayed when I bought it. Their excuse? "It takes a $50,000 piece of hardware to compile it and nobody will be able to do anything with it." Several of us responded that there are some REALLY smart people in the world that make emulators and stuff and you might be amazed. Just put it out there. Still waiting.

They finally did release the C#.NET source code of the loading program, but that thing was so slow it would take 14-16 hours to load up a 20GB player. It would lock up for about 6-7 hours with no status just when you dropped your MP3 folder on the window, but it would eventually finish. After that, it would take about 8-10 hours to load up the player over USB 1.1.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that they did add several nice features to the player including an equalizer, all in firmware updates. So they did support it some, but not in a way that was usable for me (or promised to me).

Bottom line: beware of this vendor and their promises.

Re: S-Video only ... not so lame.

[Em Ellel]

Yeah, I was surprised when I saw that it didn't have a DVI port. I mean, it's got everything else that it would need to be a really slick product ... except that it's analog only.

Erm, outputing analog video source over DVI is completely pointless. Cudos to the company for not making it twice as expensive to give people an ILLUSION of quality while actually making it look worse.

So really it's just a glorified 480i ADC with a network card and a USB port.

Exactly. Except it also has a low power CPU capable of running its own code. Pretty much we are looking at AV equivalent of a linksys wi-fi router. Only unlike cisco they are encouraging people to write their own code.

I'm somewhat unimpressed. The card reader slots really don't add anything for me, either. Except as storage for the machine itself, I can't ever foresee myself using them.

The roots of this device is in capturing analog video into MPEG-4 for viewing on portable devices... you know, like the ones that READ flash media. The card slots ARE EXACTLY for storage for the machine.

Given the cost of this device ($230) what they packed in there is pretty impressive.

-Em

Um, who needs this box these days?

[timecop]

Bwhaha, ANALOG DVR that records from 'any analog source'? Hello, this IS 2006 is it?
Why is this news and especially news for NERDS?
Nobody would buy an analog DVR in 2006, most people have HD/digital cable by now, and you can rent cable company's DVRs for like 5 bucks a month and never worry about what OS it runs. Who the hell needs this, especially for $250 (you can buy a hardware mpeg2 encoder card for your PC for $50 and have same functionality as this PVR if you're inclined to record analog for some reason).