Slashback: Revolutionism, Media, Oregon 201
Sounds and pictures from the same box -- impossible! An anonymous reader writes "The HP Digital Media Receiver ( discussed here before) is available for sale at CompUSA and online. The wired version is $199, and the wireless one is $299.
I've been using it for a little while, and I really like it so far. It took a while for the PC software to start serving, but now its fine. It found all my playlists and digital photos on the first pass, and the network setup worked properly too. I'd like to see higher-resolution photos, but it's a pretty cool way to show the pictures to my less-techie friends.
Also, I installed the PC software on both of my home PCs, and the Receiver automatically finds the music on both! It did have a bunch of duplicates (which made it easy for me to go prune out all my dual mp3s), but it was pretty cool. You can't edit a playlist at the TV set, which is a bit of a bummer, but I use WinAmp on my PC anyway, and that worked fine. I like the interface on the TV a lot (although it's a little dull after a while), and it sorted most of my media properly. Some of my MP3s ended up in weird places, but I guess that's from the ID3 tags?
One other thing - I am pretty sure I read somewhere that the Receiver runs Linux. Did anyone else see this too? The only other thing about it I didn't really like was the lack of a reset button. There is a power button, but it didn't reset the device when I pushed it, so I had to unplug it once.
Anyhow, I'm sure there are going to be a ton more products like this one out there soon, but I definitely prefer this to the Prismiq and the Audiotron. It's a much more intuitive box, although a front-panel LCD would be a really nice add!"
Since the general welfare means you, too. Cooper Stevenson writes "Thanks to all of those who called, wrote, and emailed their Legislators in Oregon, House Bill 2892 will get a hearing as covered by the Oregonian:
'A new bill would make Oregon the first state to take a formal stance against the hefty fees and technological limitations of software produced by large corporations such as Microsoft.''A House committee is scheduled to consider a proposal that promotes "open-source" software, which doesn't charge recurring fees and enables customers to alter the software code, making it more compatible with other programs.'
Global neural links sought. Controlio writes "With the first truly televised war underway, for the first time we have media members armed with sat trucks chasing the folks with the automatic weapons around. Several fixed cameras are mounted around Baghdad, and members of the media from all around the world are sending reports from the field using sat uplinks and video phones. So the question is, those of you with access to a Big Dish, have you found any wild feeds yet? I live in Michigan (U.S.), and have only been able to pinpoint local media backhauls (like Fox's news backhaul to their local affiliates), but nothing from abroad. Anyone out there have any sat and channel information for either the Baghdad cams, foreign news agencies, or best of all, the news feeds from the front line?"
This question is a good followup to a recent question posted as an Ask Slashdot seeking unbiased news about the current war.
paradox (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:sound and video on a PC (Score:5, Interesting)
You realize, don't you, by actually saying that something will never happen, you have practically assured that it will happen at some point. Just like when people said man would not fly.
Of course, this still doesn't explain the lack of flying cars ...
Digital Media Player (Score:3, Interesting)
Reporters chasing battles (Score:0, Interesting)
I saw on Japanese morning news that they got a reporter (or a few, I guess) riding with US troops in humvees through the Iraq desert.
The interesting part is - it's a woman! (and quite a good looking one) In the show she was complaining how hot and stuffy the desert suit is, and talking about the gas masks. I mean not to stereotype, but she would (from the look) fit to be one of those fragile-looking japanese ladies that will probably become a housewife in a few years.
I can hardly imagine what would happen if they really hit on some serious fighting. More interestingly, considering that there always seem to be rape-incidents a couple times a year with US troops stationed in S.Korea and Japan, I do wonder if the Iraqies pose more danger to her instead of her travel companions... Well unless she likes it that way; but anyhow... I doubt those troopes have their minds set on fighting - or, would fight more valiently than any other squadron in the force...
Re:paradox (Score:5, Interesting)
HP Digital Media Receiver doesn't support ogg... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm all for Open standards, and I have all of my music encoded as ogg on my machine, but I have to say that I'm disappointed with the sound quality of it.
You can debate it all you like, but I've found that Ogg produces some sound artifacts that MP3 doesn't, that are more irritating to my big ol' ears.
Revolution OS from HP (Score:4, Interesting)
I got several calls from various marketing/survey types (must have clicked on a box on their website one day expressing interest in Linux) and after asking a few questions said they'd be sending me information. Imagine my surprise when the package contained a DVD of Revolution OS.
Sorry to say I haven't watched it yet (kids thought it over-the-top geeky and refused access to the DVD player).
Re:sound and video on a PC (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, watching HDTV with a computer has already happened. :) See the HDTV snapshots [gnu.org] from the GNU Radio project site.
Re:About time (Score:1, Interesting)
I'd recommend anyone to get that DVD. It is full of good stuff for anyone interested in where this comes from. It is not oriented towards your local (insert big project name here) hacker, but more oriented towards the young geek, and the businessman that will get involved with OpenSource. It sort of demistify the whole thing, give a very good idea on what freesoftware and opensource are, where they come from and where they are heading...
anyway, 'nuff said, go watch it for yourself and make a decision about its quality, don't trust me, i'm just a geek that believes all he reads on slashdot... -:>
HP Digital Media Receiver (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I know, I DO plan to build a HTPC, but I'd like to have a box available in the $200-300 range that the wife and children can use as simply as a DVD player. I can take care of the media server behind the sceens myself. I'm not going to build a $1000 HTPC for each TV in the house...
Ideally, the box would do 100bT (the HP box says it's 10), and I'd like it to run an OS that I get source for, so I can customize it. Oh, and a pony, I'd like a pony.
Seriously though, I'd love to have the proverbial Linux set-top box, with maybe a 5 1/4 bay to accept a DVD drive (that could cost extra, I don't care that much.) The important bits are that it be AV-style casing, be in the $200-300 range, and have flawless, standard NTSC output. Doesn't need to be HDTV yet. Just composite and s-video, maybe component would be nice. Needs an IR input for remote as well. I'm actually willing to put up with the endless software upgrade cycle and small glitches that represent an immature or beta software base. I can upgrade/try other progs as needed.
Anyone know of such a boxen that meets my criteria?
Lacking Rendevous :( (Score:4, Interesting)
*sigh*... maybe in a firmware rev?
Re:WildFeed what WildFeed (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw tons of interesting stuff on my dish in 1991. Iraqis getting blown in half and crispy citters. A lot of footage was coming on the in dish, being censored and then put out on cable.
Now I have to make due with Fox News
Re:Wild Feed (Score:4, Interesting)
the embedded news crews are equipped with encryption hardware (software?), so as not to make the information available to the enemy. same is true for field reports from kuwait and qatar.
this may not be the case with the baghdad cams (where the iraqis may not have approved encryption equipment coming into the country), but those are not very interesting at the moment anyway.
Re:paradox (Score:3, Interesting)
In the earlier processes, the patents were on the compression technology, not on the encoding or decoding. That's what Fraunhofer were going after all the free players with trying to force them to cough up non-existant money for licensing their patented compression technology. In that case, the patent was on how to compress the audio in a meaningful way and then extract the audio channel back again in hardware. They then managed to extend that claim to software implementations. The only reasone we know they had the patents on that particular piece of technology was that they stood out from the crowd and said "we own this, cough up the money now". Most of the time that doesn't happen - it just goes into an anonymous pool run by MPEG-LA.
Re:HP Digital Media Receiver (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm kinda seeing the opposite, at least for the hardware I'm looking for (as descibed in my original post). Specifically, I'm not seeing a lot of hardware that is in a small VCR-size case, perhaps solid-state, built-in IR receiver, video chipset specifically designed for TV output. I've seen a few set-top box announcements, but I'm not seeing them make it to market. Maybe software is the reason, I don't know.
On the other hand, I see many Linux video-related software projects for general-purpose x86 PCs, if you don't mind spending the $1000 for decent hardware and having the noisy, large PC by the TV.
What DO these people do with their HTPCs? How the heck do you effectively control windows/linux with a remote (other than moving the mouse around with a joystick)?
You don't control the OS in general from a remote. (well, if you want to use your TV as a monitor, you can get wireless mice and keyboards.) For my application, you set the machine to boot with your AV application full-screen, and your remote talks to that. Think running Windows Media Player from a remote. All the functions you'd want to do could be done from a stardard universal remote, except for the naming & categorization tasks. For what I'm after, that's done on the server though, not the set-top boxes.
We simply need a tivo-like application to organize all our videos, etc. Even the Digital Media Center edition of windows doesn't come close, handles music horribly, requires hardware mpeg compression, and STILL stresses a P4 (and yet the tivo can work easily with a 50mhz PPC chip). Sure, I know about mythTV and freevo - the two projects certainly look promising, but aren't even close to ideal yet (although linux is certainly winning this race, I'd like to see something from apple).
That's what I'm talking about... In fact, the TIVO is just about exactly what I'm after, right down to running Linux. Problem is that it's not aimed at being a remote DVD player, but rather it's PVR function (duh). Plus the subscription fees and their attempts to keep it as closed as possible are really counter-productive to the kinds of projects I'd like to try. Still, the hardware base is about right, and the price would be about right without the large hard drives.
Re:Revolution OS on P2P networks? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:sound and video on a PC (Score:2, Interesting)
Home televisions are outrageously over priced for their ability.
Re:As a former state worker (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:paradox (Score:3, Interesting)