Why is there no firmware for Sky Boxes to make them FTA boxes

[is0-mick]

Could the security on the boxes be too strong? Unlikely I'd say.

You'd actually be suprised. A lot of the chipsets now on boxes have secure bootloaders on chip in the CPU, which then check a signed bootloader in the flash.

If these dont add up, then the box does not boot. Very similar to the Xbox360 security system.

BT Vision or rather sigma designs (SMP8634) has the same thing in their chips also.

The thompson skyhd box also has a similar system as it uses the BCM7038 chip which supports secure boot, altho its not actually implemented in that box.

Mick

 

[witchy]

Thanks for that Mick.

Weren't you working on the BT vision ?

How did things turn out?

 

[is0-mick]

Thanks for that Mick.

Weren't you working on the BT vision ?

How did things turn out?

Yeah, kind of put it to one side for the moment, got lots of family related issues to contend with, some good, some not so good

Last state it was in was booting without BT, no pvr func's at yet, and I had some streaming video working, and mediasharing for mp3 / jpg working. The whole app has been converted back to source code now, so its easily moddable (C#).

Problem with it is that a lot of the work such as scheduling a recording etc is done server side, even to record immediately (pressing R) is actually scheduled as well (at the current time).

So a scheduler etc would need written, then the EPG is also obtained from BT, but darkneo was working on getting it from the radio times website and putting it into the box.. but tying that in with the correct channel numbers was proving a challenge.

The skyHD project looks interesting tho, I know they were looking for some C coders who know linux kernel and drivers etc and how they integrate together if you know any dreambox guru's or such?

Mick