Linux Looms Large in DVRs, PVRs

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at LinuxDevices there's a new fanless digital entertainment center reference design based on Linux and the MythTV open source DVR (digital video recorder) software. The 'Royal Linux Media Center' runs ESG's Royal Linux OS on a Transmeta development board based on its Efficeon chip. Linux has been increasingly popular in DVRs and PVRs, with examples including TiVo (of course), HP's recently unveiled Linux media hub, i3's Mood box, Interact-TV's Telly, Siemens' Speedstream, VWB's MediaReady 4000, Amino's AmiNet500, Sharp's Galileo, Dream-Multimedia-Tv's Dreambox, NEC's AX10, and Sony's CoCoon, to name a few."

open source hardware

[m0llusk]

A potentially interesting example not mentioned is Street Fire Sound [streetfiresound.com] which has an open source hardware offering.

Re:I just have to say..

[gl4ss]

.. which mythtv doesn't then have? because that's what you're implying by the way you're puffing them.

looking at the features, mythtv looks like it does more, a LOT more.

including stuff like picture in picture, multi card support - and get this, transparent multi machine support: "Distributed architecture allowing multiple recording machines and multiple playback machines on the same network, completely transparent to the user.", rss, mpeg4, mpeg2 decoders/encoders and a whole lot of other stuff.

maybe mythtv gets mentioned more often because it does more and is prettier? anyhow, if you say that one thing is better why not back it up with features the other doesn't have

Neat, but in violation of patent laws.. ie illegal

[oblique303]

This reference design is neat, but any commercial implementation would be in violation of international patent law.

MythTV currently relies on libavcodec on the backend to do video compression/decompression. The libavcodec library implements the various MPEG compression algorithms, which are *very* vigerously protected by the LA MPEG patent pool group.

Any commercial implementation of a DVR using MythTV would be at extreme risk of prosecution by the LA MPEG group for unauthorized usage of the MPEG patents.

It would be very nice to see MythTV transitioned to use the Theora (www.theora.org) video codec, as this is a patent-free video compression / decompression library.

Re:Locked in for updates

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been putting together a MythTV box. I don't know the answers, but get involved in the mailing lists. (See the bottom of this page http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythInfo [mythtv.org].)

Other useful references:
http://www.mythtv.info/ [mythtv.info] (MythTV wiki)
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users / [gossamer-threads.com] (mailing list archive)
http://www.mythtv.org/ [mythtv.org]

Re:What do you want, exactly?

[pchan-]

But why not, say, hardware Theora encoding/decoding?

Because hardware that encodes/decodes Theora does not exist to the best of my knowledge. that, and MPEG 4 (and its varients) is widely supported by many systems/devices now (it's the video equivalent of mp3).

Why not software encoding/decoding, if it was just as fast?

Okay. I'm not fundamentally opposed to this, especially on the decoding side. A hardware encoder gives you the opportunity to use a much lower power (ie, no fans needed, lower power consumption) general purpose processor. This also generally brings the cost of the hardware down (which any embedded systems engineer like myself is obsessed with).

8) Upgradable
I thought harddrive upgrading was implicit in 6, but might as well make it explicit. In fact, sell it to me without a harddrive, just an image of the firmware on a CD. Further, since the firmware is entirely open, you can boot whatever you wish.

9) No reliance on proprietary/Windows stuff.
Absolutely.

And btw, how do you get the content of subscriptions, without the subscription?

Easy: you buy a subscription, but not from the hardware manufacturer. Instead of trying to make the money back on loss-leading hardware, the hardware people are out of the picture now. I can buy a subscription at a super-low rate from anyone who will sell it to me (competition), scrape it from a website, type it in myself. And when I stop paying my subscription, my device doesn't stop working.

Re:Is 0.18 out for Myth?

[Frying Ferret]

No, it is still on .16
CVS is quite stable righ now as well, so I would expect .17 to comeout sometime soon, but there isn't a .18, the article is wrong (shocking I know)

Re:Might DRM be the mighty blow?

[AstroDrabb]

Why? A company that is building and selling a Linux-based DVR/PVR can just license the DRM just like any other company can. Heck, Red Hat could license the MS media formats today and deliver them to their customers if Red Hat thought it would increase sales.

Why would a company selling a Linux based device not be allowed to license DRM while a company basing their DVR/PVR on some other OS be allowed to license the DRM? It doesn't work that way. If DRM ever becomes big in devices, a Linux based device will be able to license the same DRM as any other device. Heck, a Linux based device could actually have an advantage. Every device maker will be required to license the DRM technology, but the ones that build around Linux can save OS license fees and have an extra cost advantage.

Re:Good question.

[LiquidCoooled]

WMV9 is the one that has the nice "feature" where it will open up a browser window and load an arbitary page from the web simply by trying to view a movie.

You need to (from reputable companies) purchase a license for that one media file before it can be played, the web page displayed should be a purchase/more info page for the artist.

Adware spreading virus infections have noticed this now.

You forgot one

[d3ac0n]

You forgot the Prismiq media player, and the soon to be launched Prismiq media center. http://www.prismiq.com/ [prismiq.com] http://www.prismiq.org/ [prismiq.org]

Re:Neat, but in violation of patent laws.. ie ille

[dtperik]

MythTV currently relies on libavcodec on the backend to do video compression/decompression.

Unless you use a card that does encoding/decoding in hardware, no? Then MythTV is just dumping the MPEG data stream back and forth from the HD. Like the system I'm building using the Hauppage PVR-350.

Must have software for satellite fanatics

[Linuxathome]

Those of you who'd rather watch satellite programming, don't forget to check out VDR [cadsoft.de]. Add a cheap PCI card [newegg.com] to your PC and you can be time-shifting satellite programming in no time.

Re:Neat, but in violation of patent laws.. ie ille

[oblique303]

Indeed, a hardware MPEG decoder/encoder card should alleviate any patent issues, as the manufacturer is paying the licensing fees.

I'm also using a Hauppage card for my MythTV box (PVR-250). Great piece of hardware.

Re:My TV runs Linux

[onosendai]

A quick google found me the KDF-70XBR950 [sonystyle.ca] (and Here [crutchfield.com]) with GPL'd software. Also, Sony's GPL Downloads [sony.com]

Re:My TV runs Linux

[timbck2]

That's it -- mine is one of the 50" models though. I guess Linux is used for the menu system, etc. (it's much more sophisticated than previous Sony TVs I've owned). There are also several built-in games! (I know, I know, it's ridiculous!)