Any free broadcast tv with digital?

On Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:24:54 +0000, Gordon Burditt wrote:

Wes is the guy who has done the most to turn me off of MythTV (pretty
much singlehandedly). He kept claiming that his setup could do A, B,
and C for under $X, (Here A might be "use a TV to watch shows", and B
might be "2 simultaneous recordings" and $X might be the price of the
latest Tivo offering) but when you try to pin him down, it turns out
you can't have A, B, and C *simultaneously* for $X, and he answered
lots of questions with "well, you've just got to know how to build
systems" or "you've just got to know how to shop". I come away
feeling the whole thing is a scam. And I'm not confident that I could
make it work without a LOT more development effort than I have time
for.

Listen, I'm not your personal shopper. If you're too stupid to take
generalizations and purchase hardware based on that I really couldn't
care less.

If the generalization doesn't match up with any hardware as it is sold
(by brand name), it doesn't help much. I don't expect to be able to
find a list of chips used in every TV card out there to match up to a
list of chipsets supported. The manufacturers don't advertise that
info, and some want nondisclosure agreements. At the time of that
discussion, not even one brand name of a TV card was mentioned on the
mythtv website. And since there was mention of quite a few cards that
DON'T work, some rather similar to ones that do, it's not nearly as
simple as "get a 2GHz CPU or better [Intel architecture, brand
unspecified], and at least 500GB of disk space [brand unspecified] for X
hours of HDTV recording".

At the time I'm sure I mentioned the cards I've used. If not, all you had
to do was ask. I now exclusively use the old Air2PC Rev.02 cards you can
get on ebay. And other than the tuner cards, it is that simple. It's just
a standard PC with tuner cards. how hard is that?

Yep. I remember you now from the Tivo group. And disregard my other
offer for free phone support if I offered it in the other post. And by
the way, all my claims were true, but you know that already. You and
your

No, I still believe that in the discussion you recall, you claimed a
number of capabilities like watching on a TV but the price of the system
did not include a video card capable of providing outputs like that.

At the time I know for a fact I recommended an Nvidia FX5200 card (since
that's what I used). They have a standard VGA, DVI, and S-video out. I've
used all 3. All 3 work. Your memory is not very good.

cohorts only comeback was you didn't want to buy it on sale, and instead

Given the descriptions from that discussion and on the mythtv web site,
I couldn't find ANY TV card at ANY price that was indicated as
supported. Or even tested by one guy who said it worked. There were
plenty of TV cards for sale with names completely unlike anything on the
mythtv site. I had the impression I was looking at a site describing
long-discontinued merchandise (as far as the TV cards went). Googling
the TV card descriptions came up with mythtv references and similar but
no references to anyone selling TV cards.

Do you honestly think anyone here is going to believe this? What did I do,
tell you the cards I used was a secret? Come on, you're making a fool of
yourself.

The site has gotten better now in terms of referencing hardware. I have
not re-checked recently to see if any of it is actually for sale.

I probably haven't been on it in a year or more and looked around. But
there were hardware list I found when I first started to build my mythtv
box back in 05. There are list everywhere, including the kernel source
docs that list all (or most) cards of all types supported. MythTV supports
cards linux supports via video for linux and and dvb. And I've never
failed to help anyone if I could do it. All you and your cohorts said back
then was I couldn't build it for whatever the price was back then. I
finally listed every part and the price just to prove it. That's when your
little TivoNero group started demanding I provide a link for every part,
and I finally told you all to get lost (or something a little harsher).
I now have the price as $300 for a dual tuner ATSC system. And I can do it
for a lot less than that.

I didn't say anything about not wanting to buy on sale (although others
in that discussion did). But when you buy on sale, they are often
rather vague about just what model it is they are selling.

You may be correct here. With about 4 or 5 different idiots hounding you
at once, it's hard to keep track of exactly which one said what a year
later.

of my reply of just use pricewatch or yahoo shopping you wanted a link
for every part in the system. Not in this or your next lifetime. And if
you think it bothers me that you don't use mythtv, not in the least.
It's you that's missing out, not me. BTW, those same claims have been in
the links in my sigline for a couple of years. No one else has
questioned there validity.

I do have some fundamental disagreements with calculating the cost of a
system omitting parts of the cost based on "you would have paid for that
anyway for your desktop system" or "you would have paid for cable
anyway". But those are more issues of cost accounting.

And I have no clue, nor care to know, WTF you are talking about. And I've
never had cable or sat.

And why is this crossposted to 3 groups. What a waste. I'm in the HDTV
group. Don't subscribe to the others.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
My Tivo Experience http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/tivo.htm
Tivo HD/S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm
AMD cpu help http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php

and thus Camper inscribed ...
"~consul" wrote in message
and thus Camper inscribed ...
I meant that the SD had ghosting, which the HD doesn't have. Signal is
there or not. But yeah, the SD feed on my HDTV does magnify flaws.
I think you are confusing SD with analogue. Here in Australia SD is
short for Standard Definition and is a digital broadcast, therefore no
ghosting.
Sure, I might. I had always thought of the SD feed as being the same as
the analogue feed, in 4:3 format, while the HD feed as being digital feed
in 16:9 format.
Here SD feed is 16:9 but of course not the quality of HD feed.

Ah, okay then. Sorry, there are a lot of competing and conflating terms out there, and I am probably imprecise.
For me in Los Angeles:
If it comes in 16:9, it is usually the HD feed. If it was in 4:3, it was usually the SD feed. Now some stations which have partial HD programming, are obviously sending everything on the HD feed but for when they do send 4:3 programming, it has the black bars on the side. The 4:3 SD digital picture looks like the 4:3 analogue feed, but of course clearer.
And so thus I always called the SD feed the analogue feed.

As a layman.
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, Jameson Stalanthas Yu -x- poetry.dolphins-cove.com

I think you pretty much have to assume that if you put it into
Windows, Windows might try to execute it. *(Microsoft Security
Bulletins make interesting reading.) That means anything that goes
in via network, keyboard, mouse, power cord, USB port, modem, Sony
battery, CD-ROM, DVD, floppy, etc. *Your Hauppauge usb HDTV pretty
much sends in the transmitted digital stream as-is, without trying
to transform it, right? *So something like intentionally malformed
MPEG4 will pass right through it? *People trying to do DRM will
resort to such things.

try to use malicious broadcasts for copy-protection.) *Also the
longstanding uptime bug that wouldn't let Windows stay up for
more
than (what was it?) 37 days or so is not encouraging. *Also, I
don't
want to have to expose Windows to the Internet to get schedules.
Too many possibilities for viruses, even if the guy providing
the
schedules has a clean system.

So you think that the folks who are broadcasting schedules OTA are
also
going to be sending viruses out that way?

Not intentionally, but that doesn't mean they will avoid Sony
equipment in the transmitting station. *And don't rule out pirate
TV stations. *And it only takes one corrupt TV station to cause
trouble.

I've worked for Sony broadcast and use Sony equipment at work. You
give them WAY too much credit for smarts. They can't even get the
$100,000+ SRW 5500 tape machine to properly lock the reference to
720p. You have to send it NTSC black in the high def reference input
to get it to work. You think those dummies could put stuff into the
data? AGAIN its video data NOT executable code.

They outsourced the rootkit to someone else. And Sony wasn't their
only customer.

I suppose they could ... but I
don't think so.

I think it's already been demonstrated that DRM will use such
methods.
Many times.

You _are_ a conspiracy guy.

But I'm talking about stuff that has already happened. Sony got caught
putting a rootkit on a published CD, which then turned out to be vulnerable
to other malware. Others have tried to have their drivers disable the
drivers or any writable CD/DVD drive in the system.

I think Sony would do exactly the same thing again if they thought they
could get away with it, until they are hit with a big penalty, like
not being able to copyright anything for the next 7 years (which I
think is letting them off too lightly).

Video data is like audio data in that it's
DATA and not code. It isn't "object oriented programming" where the
code to handle the data is part of the overall block. You actually
have to execute malicious code to 'infect' the machine. As I said
before, even if a virus was embedded in the data stream it's not
treated as executable code.

Data isn't SUPPOSED to be treated as executable code, but that seems
not to be the case. Almost every month there's a patch to Windows
released by Microsoft that fixes a problem that can allow arbitrary
code execution of something that shouldn't be executed (this month's
patch involves TCP/IP).


Didn't the FCC say no broadcast flag a couple years back? What would
DRM do for that?

A number of things can be done if you can infect the customer's
machine, none of which are particularly new to DRM in other
contexts, including:

- Implementing a broadcast flag for machines they can infect anyway.
- Erasing stored recordings after a certain period of time (didn't
DIVX try this with media?)
- Not playing the competitor's stuff AT ALL. (A lot of people complain
about iPods for this with protected content).
- Punishing "pirates" by "bricking" their machine. (Windows Genuine
Advantage sort of does this, slowly, although it doesn't damage hardware).
- Implementing "pay per view", even charging for someone else's content.
- Implementing "no skipping commercials" (don't some cable DVRs do this?
Also DVDs with certain parts of the content like the "FBI warning")
- Adding commercials to other people's content.

Yes, a lot of this stuff is illegal, but if it's done carefully,
it might be hard to prove who's doing it.

If I was a conspiracy guy, I'd say that Sony would, if they could figure
out how to do it technically, put rootkits in *batteries*, *warranties*,
*advertising*, *stock certificates*, and even change at retail stores.

On Jan 16, 4:16*pm, (Gordon Burditt) wrote:
I think you pretty much have to assume that if you put it into
Windows, Windows might try to execute it. *(Microsoft Security
Bulletins make interesting reading.) That means anything that
goes
in via network, keyboard, mouse, power cord, USB port, modem,
Sony
battery, CD-ROM, DVD, floppy, etc. *Your Hauppauge usb HDTV
pretty
much sends in the transmitted digital stream as-is, without
trying
to transform it, right? *So something like intentionally
malformed
MPEG4 will pass right through it? *People trying to do DRM will
resort to such things.

My TV doesn't run Windows. Perhaps that why it works.

snip
I've worked for Sony broadcast and use Sony equipment at work. You
give them WAY too much credit for smarts. They can't even get the
$100,000+ SRW 5500 tape machine to properly lock the reference to
720p. You have to send it NTSC black in the high def reference
input
to get it to work. You think those dummies could put stuff into
the
data? AGAIN its video data NOT executable code.

They outsourced the rootkit to someone else. *And Sony wasn't their
only customer.

snip
You _are_ a conspiracy guy.

But I'm talking about stuff that has already happened. *Sony got
caught
putting a rootkit on a published CD, which then turned out to be
vulnerable
to other malware. *Others have tried to have their drivers disable
the
drivers or any writable CD/DVD drive in the system. *

Keep in mind that malicious software is OS dependent. My TV PCs run
WinXP Pro SP2 but I have a friend who runs on a Mac and Wes Newell
runs Linux. So who do you want to infect?

I think Sony would do exactly the same thing again if they thought
they
could get away with it, until they are hit with a big penalty, like
not being able to copyright anything for the next 7 years (which I
think is letting them off too lightly).

Screwing with broadcast brings the FCC into the picture. Historically,
you DON'T want to get on their bad list.

Video data is like audio data in that it's
DATA and not code. It isn't "object oriented programming" where
the
code to handle the data is part of the overall block. You actually
have to execute malicious code to 'infect' the machine. As I said
before, even if a virus was embedded in the data stream it's not
treated as executable code.

Data isn't SUPPOSED to be treated as executable code, but that
seems
not to be the case. *Almost every month there's a patch to Windows
released by Microsoft that fixes a problem that can allow arbitrary
code execution of something that shouldn't be executed (this
month's
patch involves TCP/IP).

I don't know how you WOULD exectute video data. The software I use -
ATI MMC and VideoReDo treat it as data.

Didn't the FCC say no broadcast flag a couple years back? What
would
DRM do for that?

A number of things can be done if you can infect the customer's
machine, none of which are particularly new to DRM in other
contexts, including:

- Implementing a broadcast flag for machines they can infect
anyway.
- Erasing stored recordings after a certain period of time (didn't
* DIVX try this with media?)

Good trick as I store the shows on USB drives that are normally not
even attacted or powered
- Not playing the competitor's stuff AT ALL. *(A lot of people
complain
* about iPods for this with protected content).
- Punishing "pirates" by "bricking" their machine. *(Windows
Genuine
* Advantage sort of does this, slowly, although it doesn't damage
hardware).
- Implementing "pay per view", even charging for someone else's
content.
- Implementing "no skipping commercials" (don't some cable DVRs do
this?
* Also DVDs with certain parts of the content like the "FBI
warning")
- Adding commercials to other people's content.

Yes, a lot of this stuff is illegal, but if it's done carefully,
it might be hard to prove who's doing it.

If I was a conspiracy guy, I'd say that Sony would, if they could
figure
out how to do it technically, put rootkits in *batteries*,
*warranties*,
*advertising*, *stock certificates*, and even change at retail
stores.

I still say they're too dumb to pull it off.

GG

"Taylor" wrote in message
...
On Jan 2, 5:39 pm, Doc wrote:
So will you be required to have some sort of cable service once it
goes all digital? Or will there be over-the-air free broadcast tv?
And if you're in Canada, you're just ****ing screeeeeeeeeeeeewed.
Because there's minimal OTH HD and no pure just-digital (SD) OTH
signals available. :-/


And no place to even buy the OTA recievers.


--
Patrick McNamara
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"Patrick McNamara" wrote in message
...

"Taylor" wrote in message
...
On Jan 2, 5:39 pm, Doc wrote:
So will you be required to have some sort of cable service once it
goes all digital? Or will there be over-the-air free broadcast tv?
And if you're in Canada, you're just ****ing screeeeeeeeeeeeewed.
Because there's minimal OTH HD and no pure just-digital (SD) OTH
signals available. :-/


And no place to even buy the OTA recievers.

Can't Canadians come to the US and pick up some TVs? The $CN is almost
worth something today.

Also, Many (perhaps a majority) CAnadians live where they have a good chance
of pickin up a direct US TV signal.

Cable will be slow to come on line. In the short run being able to keep
using the old TV will be a selling point. We got a medium sized analog TV
a few years ago. I expect it will still be working 10 or 15 years from
today. Of course now that we have a digital set (only OTA available to
us), we use the analog sets as "spare" (basement, bedroom).

"Adam H. Kerman" wrote:
If I get two coupons then send them to IRS,
may I take an $80 [deduction] on my taxes?

In fact, you report the $80 as income, since they
are compensation for work performed... the task
of going to the store. satire