On Sun, 2006-02-26 at 14:46 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
I think the dreamboxes are almost that, but I can't remember whether any are as good at being a PVR as the Humax. At worst, I think they can write video files to network storage with the right settings. http://www.dm500.co.uk/
I know very little about Sat TV (the last time I had it was with the old analogue systems)
Looks like an interesting product but nowhere on the linked pages does it tell me about the out of box capabilities...A list of specifications is fine and even desired, but some sort of description of what it does would be nice (even on the sellers site below it doesn't actually tell you what the thing does)
Does it work with freesat, what exactly are the limitations with Sky, is it incapable of receiving sky channels even with a sky card, or just premium and pay per view content ?
At the moment, my main concern with TV is trying to figure out who is causing which problems that stop the Humax and DreamBox satellite receivers working to their full potential in the UK. It looks like it's contracts between public service broadcasters and Sky, so maybe the Office of Fair Trading can take a look: if anyone has experience with this and would like to help make GNU/Linux-based PVRs more viable in the UK, email me off-list. Sky+ is not a very good PVR system, in my opinion
I'd imagine the issue is something to do with the sky cards, Sky probably licence the decryption technology to partners and if you are not a partner you can't have the sky card slot on the front of the box. They are probably concerned that if the technology is provided in a more open format then it will be more easily cracked, not saying that security through obscurity is a good thing, but some people still depend on it....At the very least wouldn't such a box be able to save pay per view content and then facilitate it's transfer to something that could either view it again or redistribute it ?
Perhaps Sky should offer a black box module (perhaps in the shape of a CAM card) so that Sky facilities can be added to other hardware.