PVR For Linux 297
amix writes "After two years of hard work the final 1.0 of VDR (Video Disk Recorder) has been released under the GPL.
VDR is Linux based VCR software for digital TV cards (DVB, the Linux driver supports cable, sat and terrestrial cards), the new TV standard in Europe and also in use at several places in the United States. VDR is a fully networkable digital video recorder (implemented as daemon on port 2001) with optional MP3, DVD and 'MPlayer' based video-codec replay plus much more. It features "timeshifting", an incredibly comfortable OSD, functions to make editing/cleaning-up the streams easier and is controllable by LIRC, keyboard, telnet/ssh, WWW (cgi) or dedicated utilities. It can be used natively on a TV, with standard v4l tools or the KVDR KDE frontend.. You have an old PC? Add one (up to four) DVB card and you got a cheap multimedia center. Here are the screenshots. " A very impressive project indeed.
how long... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:how long... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure they're not the same quality as the original broadcast (if you have better than grainy reception), but at least you can watch video tape on your TV without much hassle...
Re:how long... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, so long as you have the magic protocol which can transmit a video tape across fiber.
Re:how long... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if you count a postal employee's uniform as being made of fibers...
Seriously - if you want rare or hard to find stuff, you can get into the taper networks which give stuff away for just the cost of a SASE. If you want easy to find stuff, it's on DVD, which is a few clicks away from Gnutella.
This is not, in reality, a terrifying technology. It may, however, be a semi-killer app for Linux... "Can you do this under Windows? Oh, yeah, well can you write it out to VCD or DVD?"
--
Evan
No DirecTV or Dish (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No DirecTV or Dish (Score:5, Informative)
Dish: Maybe. It's at least the DVB standard.
Re:No DirecTV or Dish (Score:3, Interesting)
[Disclaimer: There's a lot of stuff behind that *poof*. As the Snafu cartoon once read, "I'm a little fuzzy on step two." [miracle occurs here]]
Re:No DirecTV or Dish (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No DirecTV or Dish (Score:4, Informative)
What another company has done... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever hear of snapstream? (http://www.snapstream.com) If you have a TV Tuner card, this program turns your computer into a Tivo-Like device allowing one to capture TV Shows as
One of the features this software has is it can control your Satellite Dish or Digital Cable via Infa Red. It has a little cable or something connected to an IR emitter so it can set the channel for you. Theoretically, with this device, and IR controlled device could be tuned.
The problem is, as I mentioned above, is that you're going analog and then going digital again with the associated Degredation. (To be fair, I don't think it'd be bad.)
I imagine somebody COULD find a way to do a similar thing with Linux. If they were to take their satellite reciever apart, figure out which cable has the digital data (if that's possible... I'm not claiming to know what really goes on inside of these devices and imagine I'll be told it's not possible), and funnel it off to the computer, it wouldn't be that much bigger of step to add infa-red capability too.
Anybody wanna donate their reciever to experiment on? Heh
BetaMax (Score:2, Funny)
Great product (Score:2, Funny)
I did just pay $49 for this 4 head VCR over at Circuit City...
Re:Great product (Score:2)
those archeic units are still nice for the kids play room where you can pop in a tape for um. VCR tapes don't get all scratched up and all as easy as those DVD's that are a royal pain to backup.
Re:Great product (Score:2)
DVDs aren't difficult to copy at all...with a DVD-ROM drive, the right software, and a reasonably fast computer, you can rip, reencode, and burn a DVD in a few hours (most of the time is spent reencoding, so you can start that and go do something else). Some software titles to seek out are SmartRipper, DVD2AVI, VFAPIConv, TMPGEnc, VCDImager, and FireBurner...they'll do what you want, and all of them (except FireBurner) are free (as in beer and/or speech). (You might be able to substitute cdrdao for FireBurner.) About the only other software you might need would be something to add subtitles to foreign-language flicks...VirtualDub has a subtitler filter available, and there are some programs whose names I don't recall that rip subtitles from VOBs and convert them to a form that you can mix into the video.
Re:Great product (Score:2)
i know cdrw drives don't quite work like that either, but copying an audio/digital cd quite elementary. for me, the 4-5 hours to get a copy of a dvd, isn't quite what i'm after.
point being, that to me it's a pain. i've learned the process, and can do it if i want to, but i think there's some room for process improvement there.
Re:Great product (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great product (Score:2)
bye bye tivo (Score:4, Interesting)
i'm sure a decent setup HDD, video card, and processor is near the price of a tivo, but this lends it self to much much more.
i can't see any DMCA implications, as the intent of the software isn't to distribute copies (that have been unencrypted via breaking a digital encryption method) to other users.
Except... (Score:4, Insightful)
So far all these do-it-yourself PVR "solutions" have fallen way short of being a TiVo killer. Anyone that actively uses a TiVo can tell you that.
Re:Except... (Score:2)
The primary problem with Tivo is that it is a not worth its money if you do not have a listing service. Which is the common case on "pirate style" eastern european cable and SAT networks. So yes it will look nice in a media rack in the middle of nowhere. But it will be more useful out of the rack, being used as a paperweight.
My mom (who leaves in a country with this kind of pesky cable with no Tivo listings) has been pestering me for a while now for a replacement for the ageing VCR and I just could not be arsed into buying a new one. This looks like a nice solution for the problem.
Re:Except... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, for now. The problem with these do-it-yourself PVR solutions is that there are technical hurdles. Every few months, I get the latest Video4Linux driver for my Matrox Rainbow Runner, and try to get them to do something. After an hour, I give up in frustration. I guess I'm just too old or stupid or something for this shit.
But once this stuff gets mature, then some day, someone is going to make it super easy to build apps on top of the tuner/capture functionality. Maybe they'll write some Python classes to encapsulate it all. (Have you seen what happens when a library gets Python wrappers? The productivity that follows is almost scary!) The point is, it'll leak outside the realm of the chipset and kernel hackers. And when that happens, stand back, because, apps will appear that are as good as Tivo, and even better.
This is one of the few apps where the "open source" dudes really have good odds of beating the commercial guys, because they'll be free to simply make things as good as they can imagine -- whereas Tivo thinks they have to keep a good relationship with the networks. So Tivo deliberatly omits stuff like 30-second skip, makes it inconvenient to archive stuff long-term, occasionally includes some pointless promotion menu item, doesn't integrate well with your network and fileserver(s), etc. There are no corporate pressures in the "longhair linus" camp to hold people back. Free Tivo clones are going to rock!
Re:Except... (Score:3, Interesting)
Easily enabled with a backdoor code that you can easily enter with your remote. I have it, and it works great. TiVo feels, and many people agree, that the three-step FF/RW functionality is easier to use than 30-second skips, especially for people with slow reflexes... (FF/RW have built-in 'jump back' features that pretty accurately measure most people's ability to NOT stop the fast-forwarding soon enough after they see their show come back on.)
makes it inconvenient to archive stuff long-term
Yeah, like that very inconvenient "dump to tape" feature which includes a nice screen at the beginning telling you the program name and air date before starting the program. Or the fact that they've allowed all the networking add-on hardware and software, even though they could have pretty easily come down on those guys, or made it EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to hack. Or the fact that TiVolution (a guy that regularly posts to TiVo forums and is an employee of TiVo) has come out to say that there will be some sort of networking enhancements made to TiVo's via a coming upgrade.
occasionally includes some pointless promotion menu item
Which I usually don't bother viewing
doesn't integrate well with your network and fileserver(s), etc.
Huh? You are apparantly not familiar with the very nice TiVo networking hacks. I especially like accessing my TiVo via the webserver I put inside it so I can schedule shows I find out about at work.
There are no corporate pressures in the "longhair linus" camp to hold people back. Free Tivo clones are going to rock!
Just as much as Linux does, sure. But no normal people I know use Linux. No normal people I know think Linux "rocks." Yes it is cool that people can put together a PVR if they want. Some cool projects will come of it. But TiVo killer, it isn't. By the time they get something to compete with the current TiVo, TiVo will have Series 2 and assorted upgrades ready. It does exactly what I want it to do.
Re:Except... (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like I somehow got you into Tivo-defender mode. I really didn't mean to do that... I'm not saying Tivo sucks, I'm just saying that it's intentionally less than it could be.
[30 sec skip]
Then I lose my skip-to-end button. :( C'mon, if they were really trying to maximize Tivo's ease-of-use, this would be configured somewhere under "my preferences", instead of this select-play-select-9-select silliness. Or better yet, there would have been an extra button on the remote (they were custom-made for Tivo anyway) so that people could do whatever they like best. The Tivo president admitted that this was a consession to the networks.
That ain't nearly as easy to use as "cp". ;-)
I've seen the networking hacks (been too cowardly/lazy to try 'em, though), and I gotta admit that what you did with webserver sounds pretty cool. But that's what they are: hacks. And someday you'll get an update and then you'll have to set things up again. Compare the effort you put into this with what it takes to do the same on a PC.
Well, I guess time will tell. I don't think Tivo has the balls to implement certain ideas, such as
- collaborative suggestions databases. Imagine if the database of all the thumbing up and down you've done over the last couple of years, could be shared, and someone did the "computer dating" game to find other people that like/hate the same stuff as you... You'll learn about TV shows (which you'll probably like) that you otherwise never would have looked at.
- p2p sharing of "sed for video" scripts so that people can share little scripts to automatically playback shows w/out commercials
- Save an hour-long show to CDR in one minute instead of having to play a show in real time for a vcr to record
Someday, some Python programmer is going to think of putting these things into his do-it-yourself PC PVR, and then we'll see who's playing catch-up.Re:Except... (Score:2)
I have to say, I agree. I didn't think I would, but I do. I enabled the 30-second-skip feature via the easter egg (please don't ask me what it was because I don't remember -- but it's easy to find.) And I definitely find it easier to get past the commercials by just doing FFx3 than by doing a number of 30-second-skips. When I try to do it the 30 second way, I always seem to end up 20-30 seconds into the program, and then I have to scan back... With all the zipping back and forth, it ends up being easier to have just done the FF trick initially.
Re:Except... (Score:2)
What I do is 30-second skips, and then the 'instant replay' button (which goes back 5 seconds at a time) a few times until I don't see my show anymore. I've found this is MUCH* faster than the old way.
* MUCH == approximately 1 second faster.
Re:Except... (Score:2)
I find that you tend to skip into a program with 30sec skip and have to rewind a bit, while with tivo you watch the commercials super-duper fast, as soon as you see the program hit play, and it jumps back to right when the program starts.
Re:Except... (Score:2)
It may not be as good as TIVO, but I don't really wanna pay $600 for a TIVO. Maybe eventually. But as long as this software exists, I can emulate the functionality using existing hardware. Recognize that? It's the Linux way: Save money by leveraging existing hardware.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:4, Insightful)
I also wouldn't discount the effort necessary to build a public database of showtimes. I would doubt that entertainment companies would just give open source developers an easy way to pull this information automatically. It probably wouldn't be too hard to screen scrape from some other source, but there are legal issues with that, not to mention the hassle whenever the format of those sources changes.
In the unlikely event that this does start to threaten TiVo's business, TiVo has plenty of patents on timeshifting video and the like that could probably kill off this product.
TiVo's not going anywhere...
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:2)
I'm not sure what the mentioned setup would cost, but even paying your local geek 100 US$ to set it up for you, you'd still have 1,400 US$ to go. Of course, the end result wouldn't have the same "nice" design, but still.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:2)
God, I love the patent system.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:2)
I see that as an issue too. I am not sure what hoops one has to jump through to get more than what TV Guide offers. I don't know if services like TIVO and pubs like TV Guide have to pay for that. Big burden on someone if it's not automated in some way. Cool project, though.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah right. Unless your grandma can build one of these, I wouldn't count on them replacing TiVos or Replays anytime soon.
i didn't see if there's a project to build a public database of showtimes/channels for people to get. shouldn't be that challenging.
There's probably 3000+ different cable lineups in the U.S. alone. I wouldn't count on a reliable source of this guide data just magically appearing from the open source community. However, you might be able to use the Guide+ data that gets broadcasted on PBS stations in the middle of the night. For that matter, I can't figure out why nobody has hacked TiVo to use it.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:3, Interesting)
There are already scripts floating around on Freshmeat that do it, and given their readership is obscenely large, I doubt they would notice the traffic.
Of course it's only good for two weeks, but with proper scripting, two week's advance knowledge is probably all most people will need.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:2, Informative)
As you can guess, it stores listings in XML, with a well documented DTD..
I know they also now have new backends for grabbing TV listings for the USA and Canada which I have quickly tried successfully.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:2)
Well, she probably can't. But I (or some other bored Slashdotter) could, and then I/he can turn around and sell it to Grandma for a small markup. (barring any swarming lawyer attacks, of course)
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:2)
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:3, Insightful)
If TiVo or ReplayTV want to compete with this product, they're free to. Just because it's open source doesn't mean it's immune from competition. Profits are not guarenteed in a free economy.
And no, just because a company is going out of business doesn't give it the right to sue everyone around it an attempt to bring them down too. That sort of thing is irresponsible to society at large.
Re:bye bye tivo (Score:2)
I too think that TiVo needs some competition. They're a good company with smart folks, but management will inevitably want to slow down and focus on profits. If they have inovative competition, they may have to play catch-up with some of the features (while stressing thier own unique strengths).
This keeps everyone happy, and let's face it: I think TiVo will stay on top for the forseeable future. They just need to keep thier eye as firmly placed on the audience as they always have.
Impressive - but how does it compare? (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone know of a bake-off between one of these and a TiVo or a Replay?
Image quality, integration, "intelligence", listings, UI, ease-of-use, remote-control support, etc?
Frankly I want a no-brainer to handle my TV recording; not to have to put together a perl script just to record "Naked Chef [foodtv.com]".
Re:Impressive - but how does it compare? (Score:3, Funny)
More Info [hairytongue.com]
Slashdotted already (Score:2)
Did anybody manage to mirror the screenshots before they got /.ed?
Re:Slashdotted already (Score:5, Funny)
Google cache version (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Google cache version (Score:2)
Hardware [google.com]
Software [google.com]
Remote Control [google.com]
Links [google.com]
Congrats (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like I either need to start porting, or install Leenooks!
Re:Congrats (Score:2, Insightful)
You could always try to buy said information from TiVo at 10-15 dollars a month
Re:Congrats (Score:3)
Re:Congrats (Score:3, Informative)
In a former life I worked for a company that worked closely with TMS using their data feeds. I doubt they'd have the slightest interest in selling feeds to individuals. They don't have the infrastructure to support that kind of program and I can't imagine a model that would make sense for them. They sell the feeds for a great deal on money and its a primary business for them.
I think a better model is an open source database a la freedb [freedb.org] where users contribute schedule information. However because of the time sensitive nature of schedules this might not work too well.
Re:Congrats (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps setting up a small company to purchase from TMS, and resell to users would be viable, though I'm betting that I have a non-compete that wouldn't let me start that company for another year or so.
I don't think the open source database has a shot in hell of working, to be honest. Hell, I doubt you could even get the channel lineups setup, let alone anything resembling accurate program data.
So can I still use my bttv card? (Score:2, Insightful)
Does anyone know if this application support BTTV cards? If not, then it's not much use for us North Americans.
There are TONS of DVB channels watchable. But you need a large Satellite Dish. In Europe it's mainly Ku sattellite band.
Re:So can I still use my bttv card? (Score:2, Informative)
I know of no DVB cards that would take an authorization card for pay sat. around the USA though.
ALSO, I was going to make a comment like this.. If this project is going to support 'regular' analog tv cards as well.. like my wintv-dbx.. then I'll have to set up a box dedicated to this sometime or another. It would help if it could do the serial port control thingy, 'cause I intend on getting sat. when I move out of my apartment
Interesting.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The more I think about it the more I like it. I wish I had half the knowledge it would take to pull something like that off.
once again just my ramblings.
Several cool Features (Score:5, Interesting)
- What's on next? button
- The ability to create an edited version of a recording
- Directories to hold recordings
- How much space is left on my hard drive indicator
- And I don't even want to get into network functionality.
Note to Tivo, please add these functionalites to the next system upgrade
Re:Several cool Features (Score:2)
What do you mean? Surely, hitting the Guide button to see what's on next isn't difficult, so you must mean something else...
Re:Several cool Features (Score:3, Interesting)
- What's on next? button
Easy to get this information now - its one button push on TiVO. Not to mention that most DVR users don't watch live TV anyway. The only live TV I've watched in the last six months was the Superbowl and the Oscars. Once you start to use a DVR you don't care what's on next.
- The ability to create an edited version of a recording
This would be cool but is probably beyond what most consumers want. I could see this growing in the future though. It will be interesting to see if this takes off
- Directories to hold recordings
Actually until I have much larger disc capacity on a DVR I don't see a pressing need for this. Until I have more than 100 hours (approx. 100 gigs) of shows, having them in a single directory isn't a big deal.
- How much space is left on my hard drive indicator
Why should I care? I haven't ever needed this. Its not a computer, its a bunch of TV shows. My TiVO actually does a reasonable job of space management: I tell it to keep shows I want to keep and it fills the rest of the disk with "nice to have" shows. This is far simpler than a disk management (space free and directories) and UI arrangement and it does what I want.
- And I don't even want to get into network functionality.
Yeah this would be nice. Of course the Series 2 [tivo.com] TiVO has this.
Re:Several cool Features (Score:2)
- A "Keep Watching" option, for when you tape multiple shows (i.e., the 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, of Fox, Fox, NBC, and NBC (THU)), it shows all four in succession.
- ReplayTV's "Strip the Commercials" feature.
Cases (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone know of a good source for A/V-component-style PC cases?
Re:Cases (Score:3, Interesting)
home theater case [digitalconnection.com]
No doubt there are others.
Re:Cases (Score:2)
Mirror site (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.jezner.com/slashdot/vdrs.html [jezner.com]
Like Snapstream for Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Now if only their web server would recover...
according to the site... (Score:2, Insightful)
No DCMA and no MPAA in europe (Score:2)
Need Digital TV Support for the U.S. (Score:5, Informative)
For use in the U.S. a Digital TV receiver card such as the HiPix [digitalconnection.com] or the AccessDTV [accessdtv.com].
Depending on how the hardware interfaces with the control software, it would be excellent if it could be made to work with U.S. cards.
Re:Need Digital TV Support for the U.S. (Score:2)
It also supports PVR functions (saving HDTV to disk), which doesn't exist in a commercial product (there is no HD compatible Tivo or ReplayTV).
The only drivers that I know about for these products are Windows based...
But, they both use HDTV decoder chips from Teralogic, which has done some Work with Linux [teralogic-inc.com]. So, the drivers are out there somewhere.
Modest HW (Score:2, Informative)
PC Hardware
The PC hardware I have chosen to build the Video Disk Recorder consists of the following components:
Motherboard ASUS P5A
BIOS version 1.009
HDD 37.5GB IBM DPTA353750 U-DMA-66 9ms (running with on-board EIDE
controller, so I'm not using the full U-DMA-66 speed)
AMD K6-II 450MHz
128 MB RAM
simple VGA card (no X running on this system)
Longshine LCS-8038TX network card (using the RTL8139)
3.5" floppy drive
3 Siemens PCI-DVB Sat (digital satellite receiver card)
Linux needs drivers for Creative's MPEG-2 PVR (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the things which makes the Linux VDR project slightly easier (?) to implement is that the DVB card they're using as a tuner outputs MPEG-2 to the system. Thus, no messy (and cpu intensive) video input and number crunching. This Digital VCR product from Creative has an MPEG-2 encoder chip on-board, and outputs MPEG-2. It can either use it's own tuner OR it will control your cable box/sat receiver via IR commands. And it's only $99. That's not a typo. I'm not claiming it's output will be as good as a Tivo/DVB/whatever, but at 640x480 resolution, it's a step in the right direction.
And it's no longer vaporware -- I picked one up at CompUSA last week (in NYC - 38th & 5th location).
Now, who's up for tearing this thing apart and creating some linux drivers?!
Re:Linux needs drivers for Creative's MPEG-2 PVR (Score:2)
I'm not aware of any digital video standard that supports a 480x480 resolution.
sweet... (Score:3, Funny)
The idea is to build a tivo-like device for rich people with terrabytes of storage, so you don't have to delete shows when you are done if you don't want to. It would be attached to 200 DVD and 200 CD changers. When the user buys a new CD or DVD, they pop it in the media closet.
Each individual TV would have a dumb terminal machine that connects to the closet server via bluetooth networking. Video would be streamed on demand from the server closet to any one of the remote terminals.
The remote control would be a Palm V, also with bluetooth networking. A unified interface would control access to all media including recorded TV shows, all DVDs and all CDs.
The audio component would be similar to what many people have in their homes currently, with speaker wire running through the walls.
Now, anyone have about $50000 venture capitol for me so I can build the prototype?
Re:sweet... (Score:2)
The main problem I see is that a robotic arm would add the other $4.95M development cost that the poster of the previous reply suggested
I have done a little bit of other exploratory thinking along these lines, and I came up with two other solutions:
* tape backup (yuk)
* network backup
Potentially, I was picturing the closet server hooked up to a high speed internet connection of some kind (after all it's for rich people). Maybe there could be a "shared backup" server where everone who recorded a program has the ability to use some common network disk space. A program would only have to exist in network storage once even if many users wanted to save it.
Not competition for TiVo/Replay (Score:5, Insightful)
However, it is *not* competition to TiVo outside of the handful of geeks that may choose to do it themselves over buying the off the shelf solution provided by TiVo and ReplayTV.
First, the Linux VDR based solution is not a no-brainer installation. Not by any stretch of the imagination. You have to deal with obtaining the correct hardware configuration, install all the software correctly, etc,etc,etc. Even if someone were to pick it up and sell it as an off the shelf, preconfigured unit it will still have significant maintenance issues above and beyond, say, a TiVo.
This is not a criticism-- just a recognition that the market for a TiVo and the primary market for this software is very different.
Most of the folks I know with a TiVo do not have the knowledge or the time to deal with such a solution.
Frankly, even with the knowledge an awful lot of folks aren't going to have the time or aren't going to see blowing the time on building out such a thing as being a useful investment.
Personally, I would rather pay $500 to TiVo and be done with it than have to screw around with getting all of the different random bits inline to make the Linux VDR solution work!
Finally, the TiVo provides a level of seamless integration that will not be achieved in the GPL VDR solution for a long time. A lot of the channel and scheduling information isn't available via public channels without doing a boatload of parsing and screen scraping. Even then, it'll change over time and break often. TiVo and Replay have the distinct advantage of having paid the big $$$ for data feeds that provide this data in a machine readable format.
Paying the $$$ to TiVo/Replay buys a lot more than just some software and hardware. It buys a service, a data feed, and a company to back the whole package. For a lot of the market, all of that must be included before something can be considered competition!
Re:Not competition for TiVo/Replay (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not competition for TiVo/Replay (Score:2)
entry of new vendors (Score:2)
But hardware vendors could make pre-installed low-cost, no-subscription-required boxes. Of, they could in fact offer a subscription to their own service. This lowers the cost of entry and time-to-market for competing with TiVo and ReplayTV. I suspect, however, that a number of bogus patents stand in the way.
Re:entry of new vendors (Score:2)
For a PVR to be attractive to most of the market-- the folks that couldn't care less what Linux is or what the GPL means-- the solution needs to have all that wonderful point and click scheduling features that can only be had by feeding it with complete, localized, schedules!
As far as lowering the cost-- think again! The TiVo and ReplayTV are basically embedded PCs with a few specalized chips and a big hard drive. They are cheap to make, cheap to test, cheap to maintain... not something that an off the shelf PC can achieve.
Someone *could* go the right of building a custom, embedded type solution that could approach the low cost of a TiVo/Replay, but that would require a significant up front investment.
Re:entry of new vendors (Score:2)
Re:Not competition for TiVo/Replay (Score:3, Interesting)
I own a ReplayTV, recently upgraded from 20 to 80 GB because I was going to be out of town. A couple days ago, the local phone monopoly changed the rules (went to 10-digit dialing, area code is not optional now) and my machine couldn't keep up.
I missed "That 70's Show" tonight, and if I hadn't caught the machine at 8:15, I would have missed "24" as well. The punchline is it had data up to 7:30!
The hateful part is there was no "dial now" option. I had to pretend the input was "Nothing" and accept the changes, then reset it to the proper cable network to get it to call in and get updates.
An Open Source solution would have a distributed "channel" to communicate important "overriding" information like this, with obvious security around it. So my machine, which still had 6 hours of space, would have know how to update its knowledge.
As another poster said, I'd like to see an Open Source "update" to the TiVo/ReplayTV software which gives it our own UI. Complete control over what the buttons do. The ability to teach it new controllers so you can re-use controllers from old machines, for families with more than one kid. That'll teach them how to share! ;-)
For developers, the ability to create Perl and Python bindings to the buttons on-screen. Editing would be a little difficult, but could be (slowly) achieved with the 2 = "ABC2", 3 = "DEF3", etc., where hitting it once is the first, twice is the second, etc., and it wraps around. Or the user could program in macros, in "Edit Mode", for each button. One button could be "last function called" and could keep going back each time it was pressed, again wrapping around.
Now, with these things to help out fellow developers, imagine what a marketing-minded contibutor could add to the polish of the finished product? I think there's a serious competitor, and like Microsoft's Windows Update [windowsupdate.com] site, if a product can be auto-updated it can hijacked.
Imagine creating a distrubtion of Linux with a "perfect" WINE, which completely mimicked the Windows interface, except the Help screen had different credits.
Then imagine hijacking the Windows Update machines (which must run IIS, though I'm not certain), and distributing this update. An update which can cross-polinate, and get in through various cracks like IIS holes, Exchange exploits, etc. It tries to be silent, but it'll stop at nothing to replace the closed-source mess that's eating your productivity.
The TiVo's not eating your productivity; it's just not giving you the full potential of the device, and the company wants to be friends with the old dinosaur companies. So it restricts features. That's what forces people to write their own versions, because they want new features. They want to improve what they paid for. And that (I must assume) applies to everybody, with any piece of merchandise -- especially if it can be done at no cost.
But that also means it damn well better be tested good, for it to be accepted by the general public.
You'd think ReplayTV would have been notified by my albatross of a phone company, and then been given ample opportunity to update its devices' software, so they continue to dial correctly. There should be a law -- because the telephone company is a monopoly. Otherwise it should be free competition, but since infrastructure is expensive we gave them a monopoly.
These days a wireless network with the same bandwidth would cost a lot less to set up, and wouldn't have to be regulated. And it could be as simple as an extra "layer" in TCP/IP that took advantage of the fact that wireless cards are approaching the cost of LAN cards. So instead of wiring your house, you can wireless your house.
The benefit is you're getting the ability to talk to your neighbors, too. If they have a card, then it creates a secure network among them, on which commication can be passed -- creating a "separate" Internet, similar to the Gnutella clouds model, each piece connected to a few neighbors, forming a large cloud. Like the original BBS email, as well -- which kept all calls to local calls to keep operational costs down.
And it would of course have "Internet Entry Points" where it would reach other clouds by using the Internet. So if every tenth house had DSL, it would be able to communicate very effectively.
Hated by the providers, of course, since they invested in a technology that's being evolved on top of, and they haven't made back their money yet. But not every investment is (or should be) a profitable one, and legislation isn't going to stop it (but they'll try, I'm sure -- in all the cases above).
Re:Not competition for TiVo/Replay (Score:2)
To clear up any misconceptions (Score:5, Informative)
reception. The drivers for DVB cards can be found at www.linuxtv.org.
There are mainly two types of cards available paired with the respective tuner for DVB-S, DVB-C or DVB-T. One is a full featured card containing an MPEG2 decoder and the other a budget card which only delivers the transport stream from the respective transmitter. The latter are very good for Internet via sat, cable or terrestial sources because they can deliver a full transport stream.
The DVB standard provides an electonic program guide (EPG) which allows VDR to get information about the programming and transmission times.
So it differs from Tivo because it doesn't need to encode the programs and gets the programming information directly from the respective providers. Replay is done via the MPEG decoders of the full featured cards, so you always need one to
have the full benefit of VDR, it also uses the TV out of the DVB card so no graphics card is required. Of course, you can use a software decoder to decode the transport stream that comes from the card, but that is not yet implemented in VDR.
There is also the possibility to add a common interface (CI) to the DVB card, so that you can use a common acces module (CAM) to decode encrypted channels using the smartcard you get from your provider.
Re:To clear up any misconceptions (Score:3, Informative)
It is damn hard getting a DVB card in the states that will work for the states analog channels. (cince 99% of all cable TV and off-air tv in the USA is still analog for a portion of the channel selection.. Yes kids, the channels that are low in number are still analog even with your digital cable.)
So this project is pretty much 100% useless inthe USA... which sucks as they have it flat out awesome....
to do this with US equipment you need a Hollywood+ mpeg decoder card that put out raw video to a TV and a bttv878 card with nuppelvideo.
a bit better than VHS quality in a tivoesque way by using mplayer to play it. (yes fullscreen in mono or stereo, no not 1080i with full 30 channel surround sound for the video-freaks)
slap a simple web based interface to set record times. (I know it is horribly difficult to enter day of the week and time and name of show into a text form and causes hemmorages in most people.. but the few of us that have mutated to the point where this doesn't cause death, it works for well)
I just hope that someone makes a DVB card that works in the states with the analog stuff we have and will probably have for the next 15 years.
Conditional access (Score:2)
I am thinking about chanel plus(Spain, France, etc...) access cards.
Great tool for home production ---- XXX (Score:2)
DMCA? Naw, they just want to see what you do in the privacy of your home....as has been found out about what's
popular with the anti crime cameras in London.
Or maybe I'm all mixed up. Is the device/program only usable for broadcasted channels?
Concerning the US, DMCA and ATSC (Score:3, Informative)
The driver for the Linux cards support NTSC and there have been reports by people on the linux-dvb mailing list at www.linuxtv.org that they work for the few US DVB satellite transmissions. Although it seems to be hard to get the hardware in the US.
Re:Concerning the US, DMCA and ATSC (Score:2)
Any USB/Firewire solutions? (Score:2)
Re:Any USB/Firewire solutions? (Score:2)
Tivo's not going away any time soon (Score:2, Informative)
First of all, afaik, satellite transmissions are already mpeg encoded, so all this thing does is dump the mpeg to the hd, no need to encode. That's why he's able to list an AMD k6-450 in the system requirements. I'm sure it could get by on less if it also had a comparable mpeg decoder.
The tivo must encode to mpeg using hardware. I know of no hardware that can do this in Linux. (If you know of any, please let me know). The tivo also has a dedicated mpeg decoder. This is how the Tivo is able to get by using a 50Mhz PPC processor.
So, as soon as there's a tuner card with on board mpeg encoding (In Linux), and the availability of TV listings that can be downloaded for free, and is brain dead simple to setup, I don't see the tivo going away any time soon.
Distribute TV Listings via Gnunet (Score:2)
Vik
DVB and CBDTPA (aka. SSSCA) (Score:2)
I like the remote control board! (Score:2)
SD
Re:DMCA? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:DMCA? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html
Re:I would be excited... (Score:3, Insightful)
Their software and drivers are not GPL. They only make use of other GPL software to run their software.
Re:Overheard at cadsoft.de... (Score:2)
That be "Unsere Site ist geslashdottet worden!"
Re:Overheard at cadsoft.de... (Score:2)
Not in German, since slash and dot by themselves have no German meaning. Even in English, a site doesn't get dotted in a slash sort of way, it gets slashdotted.
Re:last straw (Score:2)
Re:Substitute for Siemens Card (Score:2)
Siemens were the only ones who helped with the developement of the drivers, for which we are very thankful.
Hauppauge never really helped with the developement.
Neither with the DVB cards nor with any of their other TV cards. That's why there are no drivers for the Hauppauge PVR yet, although the kfir MPEG encoder chip is already supported in another card. But the Hauppauge design has to be reversed engineered first.
I SO agree.. (Score:2)
It wouldn't replace the regular Tivo, it'd be more of a thing for the tech savvy early adopter type. Like you say, the ability to have virtually unlimited drive space (as much as I want to add) and multiple cards for simultaneous recording would truly be killer.
The only reason I can think of they haven't moved in that direction is that they don't want to piss of Sony and Philips, their hardware licensees. At some point though, Tivo will be embedded in so many different set top boxes that it won't matter anymore.
Re:HDTV? (Score:2)
Aside from the bandwidth needed for an HDTV stream versus a regular one, what are the technical hurdles keeping this from happening?