Sony's Linux DVR Can Record Two Weeks of TV 311
DoctorNo writes "Sony will introduce - in Japan only - a Linux based video recorder in early November which can store 342 hours of content with 500GB of hard drive space. As well as the highend machine, Sony will also offer a cut down version with a 250GB drive. They will be priced at $1380(500GB) and $1035(250GB). More information,
specs
, and pictures
(Japanese). Add another to the list of consumer
Linux devices..."
Two Weeks of TV... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, given the major networks' lineups, I'd say that this is likely a feature I'd never use.
57 channels and nothing on...
Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, pushing the envelope further and further makes the lesser powered models come down in price - which makes everyone happier.
Although, I am a Time Warner subscriber and there OnDemand service does quite enough for me IF they expand it to more channels. I can start and stop shows all I want.
Thats a lot of bananas (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a question, would you all be as excited about yet another PVR, would this be newsworthy, if it ran Windows CE or anything other than linux?
And why does it not bother anyone that the OSS community will get nothing out of this, like improved video capture drivers for your linux box?
As long as you're throwing down a cool grand (Score:2, Insightful)
a possible market (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a news item even with out the word linux. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's because it's FREE! The time and money to develop an embedded OS, or licensing fees for using a pre-existing one used to be a very expensive undertaking. Now with Linux it's free with minimal R&D.
Celebrating price only reflects one thing, price. It has nothing to do with stability, or politics.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps your thinking about it in the wrong way. Imagine stitting down in the evening and wondering - "I wonder if there was anything good on the movie channel* today that I might like to watch" rather than "I wonder if there is anything on right now that I might like to watch".
It sounds cool to me, even more so if you are fussy about what you watch on TV.
(* or BBC One or whatever is your preferred channel.)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea behind the bigger hard drive size is to increase the possibility that it'll record a show that you'll eventually want to watch. For example, you notice that tonight part II of an A-team episode is on, and you want to see last week's part I first. If the Tivo thought that there was a 1 in 1000 chance you seeing the show (based on watching DC CAB [imdb.com] six times in a row), it would weigh that with the available disk space -- if there was enough room for 2000 shows, then it would go ahead and take that risk. If there was enough room for only 10 shows, then it would only record things it thought you had a 1 in 10 chance of seeing.
So, it's about maximizing the chance it'll get something you'll want to see.
Re:Thats a lot of bananas (Score:5, Insightful)
secondly, it is good for the community. it shows that the cost of using a linux implementation is more effective than using another (windows) implementation. these companies don't have to pay licensing fees (go to hell SCO) for every box they sell, or some huge development licensing fee.
sure the TCO's have different aspects with the different os's. the TCO of a
linux makes sense for consumer devices.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you mean "at your beck and call".
Re:Thanks Sony (Score:4, Insightful)
Technology needs to become more universal, but its expense in implementation costs makes that hard to do. If you, in the US, are having problems enough getting hold of this kind of thing, can you imagine how hard it is for someone in, say, Russia, Egypt, or Australia, to gain access? And yet there's no technical reason why they shouldn't, and there are people within those nations who can afford such equipment and see it as worth while. But we limit the marketing of technologies, slavishly obeying arbitrary national borders, because of the difficulties associated with expansion.
Expanding means creating new marketing networks and providing the means of transporting this equipment to other countries. This is expensive, though if done with a shared spirit of cooperation and determination, there's no reason why, say, an open distribution network shared by any number of vendors, might not make such things possible. Such a network is, for all intents and purposes, impossible, because it relies upon there already being a large enough momentum towards unfettered distribution to work.
This quagmire of national boundaries restricting the flow of goods and services will not disappear by itself. Unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman [house.gov] or senator [senate.gov]. Write also to Jack Valenti [mpaa.org], the CEO and chair of the MPAA, whose address and telephone number can be found at the About the MPAA page [mpaa.org]. Write too to Bill Gates [mailto], Chief of Technologies and thus in overall charge of systems like Windows NT, at Microsoft. Tell them that technologies and spreading the good they do to everyone, not just those in the very largest first world countries, is important to you. Tell them that open, standardized, distribution networks would help open up the free export of technologies across the world, bettering mankind. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by individual manufacturers and individual store chains to try and provide some of this functionality but that if the insistance of exclusivity and the lack of standardization in business practices are not dealt with you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how a lack of a free and open technology distribution network harms all three. Let your legislators know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies concerning the distribution of technologies to everyone.
You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.
Re:Two Weeks of TV... (Score:2, Insightful)
time be in front of TV waiting for good shows.
HUH? Your rant does not apply to this article or this equipment at all. It is a PVR, you don't sit in front and wait for the shows, you tell it what to record and watch it when you want. This equipment prevents what you are ranting.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:As long as you're throwing down a cool grand (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're viewing PVRs only as a replacement for VCRs. Of course that is one function, but there is so much more functionality in these things. I have weeks (well, 200 hours) of television recorded not becuase I watch TV an awful lot, but because I rarely watch TV!
I've got maybe 8 or 9 movies taped, 20 simpsons, 20 seinfelds, random TLC/Discovery channel shows, and of course the 2002 and 2003 National Spelling Bees on my Replay. When I sit down to use it, I like to quickly turn on a simpsons that I haven't seen in a while, or go straight to a show I enjoy without having to sit and wait through 5 minutes of commercials.
The more capacity the PVR has, the more useful it is to me. Its not as if anyone (in their right mind) is going to sit down and seqentially watch 500 hours of teleivsion programs -- they can do that already without a PVR!