Porting SageTV to run on D-Link DSM-520

[maninblack_30]

Hello all, I'm no expert so I hope this doesn't sound silly, or isn't the wrong place to post this, but a friend of mine has just bought a HD capable media player with a built in DVD player. He's a linux Guru and said he'd written his own "operating system" (I know that's not the proper name for it) for this unit and that the source code is available. it can be found at http://z500series.com/index.php (Narflex, have you had a look at these?)
I must say I have nothing to do with this company so there are no alterior motives here!
He also said that it may be possible to rip dvd's to the server from one of these. He had never heard of SageTV, and I'm not the most technical of people so he tends to "dumb things down" for me.
Does anyone have a technical package of "stuff" that would be required to make a "mvp.bin" or a linux client for sage that I could forward to him to have a look at?
I'd love to see something like this .
I hope all that made sense!!

Cheers,
Fraser

[PGPfan]

Hi Fraser,

That looks nice! Any idea how much it costs? And where to get one?
Any chance you could contact your friend and find out exactly where and how to get all the source code?

Sorry for all the questions, this just looks like a nice possibility and it would be nice to really have something that we could get working with Sage without all the work that JUC has been putting in on the D-link box.

-PGPfan

[hemicuda]

go to the news page

http://z500series.com/press_z500_us.php

$429 retail

[PGPfan]

$429 indeed!

Although it does indeed have an HDMI port, it's not the 'worlds first' as claimed in their website. Heck, the D-Link player we are working on has one, and it's MSRP is like $249. I don't need to spend an additional $180 just for a DVD drive.

-PGPfan

[MTisza]

I have seen that player before I saw the Dlink being available. So I do think they can legitly claim to be world's first. They are just not USA's first and they are not the only ones anymore.

I looked at their forums and it looks like they do release source code, but require that you be in the "club" to download it. The "club" consists of being a registered owner (I think).

Also it has the identical Sigma Designs 8620L as the Dlink DSM-520! Interesting.

I'm not sure all the source code is released and I'd love to find an answer to that.

maninblack_30 can you get youre friend to post the source somewhere where we can access it. It is quite legel for him to redistribute the source since it's GPL.

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by MTisza

Also it has the identical Sigma Designs 8620L as the Dlink DSM-520! Interesting.

Yes, very interesting indeed

-PGPfan

[MTisza]

The actual price is 399 + shipping from the distributor:
http://www.mediawestdistribution.com...k_DVD_Player/4

I've read on forums that it has worked flawlessly with twonkyvision upnp server. and even plays back live tv well enough. The minor glitch is that if you start for example playing 1 hour into a 3 hour show when you get to point where it was when you first started recording the FF no longer works.

So all in all I think I'm going to ditch the Dlink and go with this. I will keep y'all posted on source code and what not. I haven't seen any plausable negative reviews on the product yet. It also supposedly has a region hack for the player! (major + for me)

[maninblack_30]

I didn't think there would be this much interest, perhaps this should be a new thread?
I have just spoken to my friend and he's going to send me the code sometime today (he hopes) He's currently very busy writing his own Linux distro
so he won't have time to be involved in any of this at the moment/near future. He seemed to think that the idea of a sage client looked promising.

Could I email the source to someone when it comes? I don't really have anywhere I can post it so all can download it.
Wow! even I'm getting excited about it!!!!

Fraser

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by maninblack_30

I didn't think there would be this much interest, perhaps this should be a new thread?
I have just spoken to my friend and he's going to send me the code sometime today (he hopes) He's currently very busy writing his own Linux distro (?)
so he won't have time to be involved in any of this at the moment/near future. He seemed to think that the idea of a sage client looked promising.

Could I email the source to someone when it comes? I don't really have anywhere I can post it so all can download it.
Wow! even I'm getting excited about it!!!!

Fraser

If you can send it my way I can put it on a server. (as well as take a look)

_Demo_

[maninblack_30]

Will do _demo_

[maninblack_30]

Got it, what would you like me to do with it? it's 66MB

Fraser

[JUC]

quick update--nothing new! go figure. I had a hard time getting in touch with dlink last week--waited on hold for about 40 minutes a day for 3 days straight. Got bounced around to a few departements and finally was told they don't release 'that information'. Not really surprised I guess. I'm a little disapointed they didn't at least respond to the letter though although they had absolutely no incentive to. I'll move on to Redsonic I suppose. If you want to send emails (i don't have the contact email address) just use the letter on page 3? of this thread--and forward it along. can't hurt.
JUC

[MTisza]

maninblack_30, please email me at MTisza@ieee.org I will give you an FTP account to use to upload to, and I will then post it for everybody on a web site.
I think my email will accept >100MB so you can try emailing directly if you want to bypass the ftp.

Thanks

[JUC]

From MediaWestDistribution's website regarding the z500,

"Included with the player are two options for media servers: TwonkyVision and Windows Media Connect."

TwonkyVision--gotta love it! Anyway, if this turns out to be a way to get at the sourcecode then that would be great!! Good find Fraser.
JUC

[maninblack_30]

MTisa, I have FPT'd it to _demo_, it took me nearly 2 hours! and I couldn't browse the web at the same time!
He said he'd put it on a site somewhere for everyone, I'm sure he'll post a link soon.
Good luck all!
Fraser

[_Demo_]

The file is available at http://extender.mu3d.com/

From the quick look I've made it seems their kernel doesn't include the multimedia part. Unlike for the dlink unit it seems they didn't integrate it.

_Demo_

[maninblack_30]

Is that good or bad _Demo_?

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by maninblack_30

Is that good or bad _Demo_?

Not good since the source doesn't include it.

_Demo_

[MTisza]

The multimedia stuff, as long as they developed it themselves, is most likely covered by a non GPL i.e. non open source type license. They are probably not required to distribute it. But what I don't understand is that there was one persone who claimed he built the firmware from the download and after fixing a bug in the download it worked. The dev. team even expressed interest in his fix.

How could he have done it? Are there bninaries there cover teh multimedia stuff?

Anybody have a clue?

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by MTisza

The multimedia stuff, as long as they developed it themselves, is most likely covered by a non GPL i.e. non open source type license. They are probably not required to distribute it. But what I don't understand is that there was one persone who claimed he built the firmware from the download and after fixing a bug in the download it worked. The dev. team even expressed interest in his fix.

How could he have done it? Are there bninaries there cover teh multimedia stuff?

Anybody have a clue?

Doing this is not a problem. What I meant is the kernel level handler for the hardware. On the dlink they have integrated it in the kernel so kernel sources for the dlink unit should contain it.

_Demo_