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Re: repurposing cheap dvr boxes

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On Wed, 8 Oct 2014, asdf wrote:

> (I apologize for the repost from c.o.l.embedded but that group
> looks almost dead and the topic may be of interest to others)
>
>
> Those nice boxes have multiple video inputs, serial/RS485/parallel i/o
> for alarms, camera motion etc, one or more audio i/o, HDMI output,
> one or more SATA ports, etc and some cost down to less than $50
> including case, power supply, cables, mouse and remote. And all of
> them run Linux. The logical question is: did anyone manage to flash
> some embedded distro on one of these boxes to extend their
> capabilities or use them for different purposes? 4 or more channels
> video sampling means they use some pretty fast ADCs in there.
>
> Here's one.
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/361044828613
> Having placed a few of them I can confirm, regardless of their
> brand/model, many use the same firmware save for a few
> changes.
>
>
I've wondered about it, I've found a few on the sidewalk. But I've never 
looked into it, so I don't know what might have been done already.  Since 
these I've found, I have no manuals to see if they run Linux, and booting 
up one of them doesn't say.

Blu-ray players also tend to have a board inside that runs linux, probably 
limited in resources, but maybe fitting some uses, and they certainly can 
be small.  At least one of my two blu-ray players will accept a keyboard, 
and one of these days I'll plug one in and see what it might do.

Even my tv sets run Linux, but I can't figure out what use that would be 
as a tv set (though maybe as they die, the controller can be reused for 
something).

But yes, we are now at the point where Linux is out there, and some of the 
devices may be failing, or "obsolete", and we may be able to put some more 
life on them.

   Michael

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repurposing cheap dvr boxes asdf <asdf@nospam.com> - 2014-10-08 14:42 +0000
  Re: repurposing cheap dvr boxes Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-10-08 11:45 -0400
    Re: repurposing cheap dvr boxes Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2014-10-08 11:23 -0500
      Re: repurposing cheap dvr boxes The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2014-10-08 17:34 +0100
      Re: repurposing cheap dvr boxes Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-10-09 14:44 -0400
        Re: repurposing cheap dvr boxes Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2014-10-09 14:20 -0500

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