from Hacker News

OpenPLi – Open-Source Set-Top Box Software

by pacamara619 on 2/3/21, 3:32 AM with 8 comments

  • by someperson on 2/3/21, 12:05 PM

    I'm moving to a new country soon, and I've been considering setting up multiple DVB-T receivers to a low power computer to record all free-to-air channels simultaneously into a multiday looped buffer, to make available to myself over the internet. Where I live, the local free-to-air channels rarely have YouTube live streams, and when they do they only have around 12 hours of history at a measly 480p.

    I have a bunch of those cheap RTL2832U USB receivers from a decade ago. I've played with Tvheadend before and the way DVB-T works is multiple channels are placed on a single multiplex, so you only actually need 5 tuners to receive 30 channels.

    Traditional platter-style hard drives are cheap and well suited to such workloads too: so-called surveillance drives used for looping multiple days of security camera footage are available in 10+ terabyte capacities. I may re-encode given most broadcast TV where I live is broadcast in MPEG2 (used in DVDs) rather than better codecs like H.264 (used in Blu-Rays).

    Anyone else do anything similar?

  • by the_biot on 2/3/21, 10:49 AM

    OpenPLI is one of the many open source set top box projects that relies heavily on vendor-provided kernels, because of the drivers that run the hardware.

    Why is it that none of these seem to make an effort to get out from under the outdated-kernel, crappy vendor driver trap? They seem content to keep diddling UI stuff while the underlying technology remains so shoddy?

  • by wormy425 on 2/3/21, 7:31 AM

    I hoping they were using the PL/I programming language for set-top-box software. But I don't see any references to the language at all.