Blockbuster's Movie Download Box Runs Linux

DeviceGuru writes "In a better-late-than-never move, Blockbuster has introduced a video-on-demand (VOD) service accompanied by a 'free' set-top box (STB). Like TiVo, Roku's Netflix box, and many other modern Internet-enabled A/V gadgets, Blockbuster's new VOD STB runs Linux. But darn it; when will someone finally offer a reasonably-priced, open-platform STB that serves as an A/V gateway to multiple Internet-based services — one consumer-friendly, environmentally-designed, low-power gadget 'to rule them all,' if you will."

Comments

Dying Concept

[nurb432]

Now that this stuff is practical, our friendly ISPs are throttling/capping our bandwidth.

Re:open-platform?

[Skapare]

As long as it is the content distributors making the devices, this is a problem.

What's needed is for a company that focuses on making hardware and software to make such a box that incorporates a DRM that the content distributors can trust. Decrypting and decoding done in a hardware chip could accomplish that. Then they can get a device key that would enable decrypting the key that comes with the content package. There are other ways to do this, such as the content distributor encrypting the content package key with the single device unique public key (every unit has a different one, so the user has to send it to the content distributor as part of the purchase).

All this can be done without the OS itself ever handling any decrypted content. So it would be safe to not only run Linux, but even let users load their own custom OS (not necessarily Linux ... NetBSD might be fun, too). The DRM application would simply feed the keys into the hardware chip, and if the response to that is positive, feed the encrypted A/V stream into the hardware chip.

To be truly open, this device needs to also be able to handle non-DRM content. When in the non-DRM mode the hardware chip would not be doing any decryption. It would only be doing codec decoding. That way you can play your own movies and music, too. In the non-DRM mode, all outputs need to work (DRM protected content may not allow the analog output to work).

A user loadable OS would promote innovation. Geeks can experiment with new ideas. The manufacturer could then adopt them when it's done with GPL software such as Linux, if the creators publish it (since GPL means they have to provide source).

Really good hardware will include algorithms to decode all the major proprietary and non-proprietary formats, including DIRAC, OGG {Theora,Vorbis}, FLAC, MP3, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264, DVB-{C,S,T}, ATSC, and anything else I didn't think of (there are too many minor ones). The box should also include Firewire {400,800}, USB, and eSATA-II jacks (all with support for flash sticks, hard drives, optical drives, cameras, camcorders, and phones), along with an RJ-45 ethernet 10/100/1000, an SMA wireless antenna jack (B/G/etc), dual antenna jack with built in DVB/ATSC/QAM tuner, cable-card slot, and an RJ-11 phone jack with a modem to dial up to buy authentication keys for those without broadband. The best box will have them all. Better boxes would at least allow all of them as options.

The first hardware manufacturer to do this and make sure it's fully open source, including the driver that passes the key package and content streams to the decoder hardware (the sealed part), would get a LOT of free publicity by the open source community raves. Although a lot of people do hate DRM, a market in transient products (e.g. movie rentals) would not function very well without it. By including such DRM capability, the manufacturer that makes such a device would have market potential for it well beyond just hackers. That would mean lower mass production pricing.