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New MythTV Based PVR Available
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Apr 26, 2006 08:00 AM
from the everyone-needs-a-rack-mountable-pvr dept.
from the everyone-needs-a-rack-mountable-pvr dept.
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?"
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Just SAY NO! to the USA? (Score:2)
(http://users.mtrx.net/funnypics | Last Journal: Monday September 25 2006, @11:29AM)
And check out the prices!!
Re:Bye, bye DRM-crippled Intel Viiv (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bye, bye DRM-crippled Intel Viiv (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Just SAY NO! to the USA? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.vanderlee.com/)
money (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Thursday November 20 2003, @05:55AM)
Re:money (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday November 03 2005, @02:42PM)
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.
Re:money (Score:5, Informative)
Mad Crazy??? (Score:1, Insightful)
ChavDot: News fo Chavs, stuff dat be madder. (Score:5, Funny)
Is it the mad crazy super duper bomb diggity, for shizzle?
Re:ChavDot: News fo Chavs, stuff dat be madder. (Score:5, Funny)
-Eric
Re:ChavDot: News fo Chavs, stuff dat be madder. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://robvincent.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 09, @01:55PM)
Mythical Exhortations (Score:2)
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.
Let me guess (Score:3, Funny)
Are they paying TiVo Licensing Fees? (Score:1, Insightful)
Priorities. (Score:1, Redundant)
(Last Journal: Friday August 27 2004, @11:03AM)
Digital Broadcast flag? (Score:1)
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 is still alittle too arcane.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:mythtv is still alittle too arcane.... (Score:5, Funny)
It's sentences like that which keep Linux in general, and MythTV in particular, relegated to geek obscurity. ;-)
-Eric
Would need a lot of work (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.wildpad.com/)
They must be good (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
You can get a dual tuner version too (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://johnstewien.spaces.live.com/)
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 )
Myth Project (Score:3, Informative)
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/ [plutohome.com]
PVR? you mean PBR right? (Score:1)
(http://www.seabasshell.com/)
Nope, it's too true to be good (Score:2)
(http://www.pleasantonplayhouse.com/)
And they fly too! (Score:1)
What do people do in the UK? (Score:2)
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?
Too good to be true (Score:1)
(http://www.galaxycow.com/blogs/vermyndax/)
Tivo just works (Score:1)
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.
MythTV + Bittorrent (Score:3, Informative)
Until I discovered TvTorrents.com [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.
I want that case!! (Score:1)
Get TiVo now, and wait... (Score:2)
(http://loewald.com/)
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.
DVB? Doesn't appear to be... (Score:1)
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.
Is it too good to be true? (Score:2)
(http://www.andrewrondeau.com/)
- 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.Re:What's the big deal..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trully (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Trully (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Trully (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.nexusuk.org/)
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).
Re:Trully (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.personal.psu.edu/~psa104/)
Uh, you do realize that it's not only possible, but rather easy, to set up MythTV to work with cable boxes [irblaster.info]?
Hit play and record on two remotes? What is this, 1980?
Who needs cable? (Score:2)
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.
Re:TV OUT limitations (Score:1)
Re:cablecard (Score:2)
Ummmm....not really. If it doesn't support CableCard....MOVE ON...
Yeah, because their market (in New Zealand) is sure demanding CableCard support... right?
Re:cablecard (Score:2)