Cable box w/ built in DVD, DVR, and MP3

[coyote]

Well....here's a new item on convergence of gadgets.

A cable box that has a built in 80 gig dvr, built in dvd player, mp3 capable, 2 tuners (for 2 tv's or to record one and watch another), and a built in ethernet to hook up to your pc. And its about to be rolled out

Although it will take probably a lifetime to get to my area (New York) Time Warner Cable sucks

Here's the article:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/07/16/charter.dvdbox.ap/index.html

[Gazorgan]

Well, it's digital, so that answers that question. However, the article states you can't copy recorded TV shows from it over the ethernet connection. That makes it about useless for most of the users here. It's fine for time shifting. I suspect it will cost you an extra $12.95/month to rent this option.

You can't crack the case and copy off the harddrive without completely disabling the unit. You can't hack the unit to use it on digital cable unless you cloned an existing unit (don't ask me how), that leaves just analog cable, and for that you can use a TIVO or some other PVR options.

[Greg12]

I give it a week

and some kid will be working on new firmware and a workaround for the copying.

[txpharoah]

I give it a week

and some kid will be working on new firmware and a workaround for the copying.

I'm somewhat familiar with the technology. Although I doubt it being a "kid", it shouldn't take too long to "hack." I hate that word. Is it really hacking when you're dismantling your own hardware at home? I think not.

[bugster]

There is a slightly less featured unit in use for a while now on the UK's Sky digital sattellite network. If the PVR part of this device works in anyway similiar to the the Sky PVR (simply called SKY+ BTW, and costs £10/mth on top of your normal sub) then cracking it won't be so easy.

The SKY+ has two tuners, one for watching live TV, one for recording. During recording, the received digital signal is written straight on to the disc, complete with encryption. The disk does not use a standard file system (though it is a normal IDE disk) so it can't be read in any PC and as yet )AFAIK) no-one has cracked the Sky encryption. I don't know if the same can be said about US digital cable encryption.

It does have a 'save' feature, where you can play a recorded show, and output it through composite or SVideo, though some shows (notably PPV) are flagged with macrovision. So you can cap from the device, but obviously the digital-analog-digital conversion will lose some quality.


What I really want to see is a unit like this that will capture to removable media (DVD recordable) without doing any sort of D-A-D conversion, How likley is that, not very if the TV studios and media giants have anything to do with it!