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What has happened to the promised Foxsat HDR upgrade?


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Old 26-02-2011, 17:41
carvell
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I have a funny feeling Humax will try their best to prevent this from happening, seems to be a trend here in the UK to lock everything down.

Would be good if raydon altered the current firmware to prevent automatic download of newer firmware so that it Humax do alter stuff to prevent it being hacked again we have a choice as to update or not.
I don't think they will. Extra functionality like that sells boxes. I'd also suggest that it may be impossible, given that the box expects the upgrade to be in a certain format. Humax can't just change everything to stop raydon's mod working as the box won't load it properly.

Altering the Humax portion of the firmware to disable updates would be illegal - raydon certainly wouldn't do it.
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Old 26-02-2011, 17:52
acoolwelshbloke
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Altering the Humax portion of the firmware to disable updates would be illegal
Harsh words, at best it would breach copyright rules or something which is a civil matter nor criminal.
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Old 26-02-2011, 18:35
carvell
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Fair enough. When I say "illegal" I just meant "against the rules" really - raydon wouldn't do it.
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Old 26-02-2011, 23:11
adgloride
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The HD Fox T2 has an ftp function. Hopefully Humax may decide to add all these functions to the firmware.
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Old 27-02-2011, 16:18
swedish cook
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The HD Fox T2 has an ftp function. Hopefully Humax may decide to add all these functions to the firmware.
But its for backup use only, no unencrypted recordings can be taken off via FTP on the T2 ... a lot of use that is.
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Old 27-02-2011, 16:22
swedish cook
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Harsh words, at best it would breach copyright rules or something which is a civil matter nor criminal.
The HDR runs a variant of Linux called busybox which is GPL licensed, extending it is specifically allowed I believe.

Copying recordings of unencrypted broadcasts is also permitted for personal use.
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Old 27-02-2011, 21:45
acoolwelshbloke
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The HDR runs a variant of Linux called busybox which is GPL licensed, extending it is specifically allowed I believe.
Good point i never thought about that, if the box is running GPL or linux software your free to alter it.
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Old 27-02-2011, 22:54
bryhhh
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The HDR runs a variant of Linux called busybox which is GPL licensed, extending it is specifically allowed I believe.

Copying recordings of unencrypted broadcasts is also permitted for personal use.
For info, the firmware isn't covered by the GPL, only portions of it are.

You can quite happily obtain the GPL portions of the code and do as the GPL permits with it, but that doesn't give you the right to put your own modified code on the device.

I'm not saying you aren't allowed (although I do suspect there will be a clause somewhere in the EULA that prevents you from doing so), I'm just pointing out that the GPL itself doesn't allow you to mod your HDR.
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Old 27-02-2011, 23:47
swedish cook
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For info, the firmware isn't covered by the GPL, only portions of it are.

You can quite happily obtain the GPL portions of the code and do as the GPL permits with it, but that doesn't give you the right to put your own modified code on the device.

I'm not saying you aren't allowed (although I do suspect there will be a clause somewhere in the EULA that prevents you from doing so), I'm just pointing out that the GPL itself doesn't allow you to mod your HDR.
Portions are GPL v3 I believe and therefore covered by the "anti-tivoization" clauses, these were introduced to specifically prevent hardware manufacturers from benfiting from GPL code but then preventing the end user from modifying firmware which relies on GPL. I see why they do it, but it is technically illegal to prevent frimware modification in this case and any EULA that attempts to change this is invalid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization

Now reverse engineering Humax proprietry code for use on another platform, thats illegal, but we aren't doing that.
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Old 28-02-2011, 10:51
nowster
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The Linux kernel is GPLv2 only. Busybox (which is not Linux) is also GPLv2 only.

The settop program which provides much of the functionality is proprietary to Humax.
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Old 28-02-2011, 11:35
carvell
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The HDR runs a variant of Linux called busybox which is GPL licensed, extending it is specifically allowed I believe.
Adding FTP etc is specifically allowed, yes. What isn't allowed is opening up Humax's code that runs on top of busybox, this is proprietary software. This is the code you'd have to alter in order to stop the box downloading OTA updates.

Edit: Oops - didn't see the post above mine sorry, which says the same thing I'm saying.
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Old 01-03-2011, 00:22
swedish cook
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The Linux kernel is GPLv2 only. Busybox (which is not Linux) is also GPLv2 only.

The settop program which provides much of the functionality is proprietary to Humax.
You're correct, I looked at a duff website.
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Old 01-03-2011, 18:16
caldirun
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Adding FTP etc is specifically allowed, yes. What isn't allowed is opening up Humax's code that runs on top of busybox, this is proprietary software. This is the code you'd have to alter in order to stop the box downloading OTA updates.

Edit: Oops - didn't see the post above mine sorry, which says the same thing I'm saying.
You dont have to alter any code, just go into menu and set it on manual update, I have set mine as a precaution!
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Old 01-03-2011, 18:30
grahamlthompson
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You dont have to alter any code, just go into menu and set it on manual update, I have set mine as a precaution!
Afaik there is no such option on Freesat boxes, certainly there is not on Humax freesat boxes.

If you mean the manual update option it does not turn off auto updates, just allows you to access updates from other than the normal source (if there were any).
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Old 01-03-2011, 19:06
caldirun
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Afaik there is no such option on Freesat boxes, certainly there is not on Humax freesat boxes.

If you mean the manual update option it does not turn off auto updates, just allows you to access updates from other than the normal source (if there were any).
Are you sure of that?
May have to pull the power overnight if you are!
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Old 01-03-2011, 19:25
Jepson
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Are you sure of that?
May have to pull the power overnight if you are!
I don't think perpetually stopping the box from doing its housekeeping tasks is a particularly good idea in the medium-long term.
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Old 01-03-2011, 19:58
caldirun
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I don't think perpetually stopping the box from doing its housekeeping tasks is a particularly good idea in the medium-long term.
Did it for around 12 months with no problem, just no thumbnails, what do you think it might do then?
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Old 01-03-2011, 20:48
grahamlthompson
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Are you sure of that?
May have to pull the power overnight if you are!
Page 53 of the manual, option 2 note.
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Old 02-03-2011, 08:15
Jepson
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Did it for around 12 months with no problem, just no thumbnails, what do you think it might do then?
Others have reported problems. I can't remember what.

It just doesn't seem to be a very good idea to inhibit a process that the manufacturer thought it necessary to include.

Of course, if all it were doing was making those daft thumbnails and looking for updates it wouldn't do any harm.
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Old 02-03-2011, 23:12
swedish cook
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...Of course, if all it were doing was making those daft thumbnails and looking for updates it wouldn't do any harm.
The thumbnails are a little irrelevant but they do add to the eye-candy value in the media list. I kinda like them, admittedly it would be much better if they could push them out from the broadcaster.
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Old 15-03-2011, 22:26
Hummyowner
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Beta release tomorrow?

Not sure how reliable this info is, but the source is normally dependable.

http://myhumax.org/forum/topic/impen...ftware-release
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Old 15-03-2011, 22:31
gomezz
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I am interested to know what

"Dolby Digital downmix included"

means.
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Old 15-03-2011, 22:54
grahamlthompson
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I am interested to know what

"Dolby Digital downmix included"

means.
At a guess, disabling DD output in the menus now outputs lpcm on spdif for AV kit without AC3 decoding capability.
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Old 15-03-2011, 23:30
gomezz
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As long as it is option-driven. I wonder if this accidentally fixes the bug which keeps the SPDIF output active (but mute) when you put it into standby while it is still recording? One can hope as they must have been fiddling in the relevant area of code.
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Old 16-03-2011, 08:13
Jepson
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No mention of sorting out the myriad UI niggles that make an otherwise superb piece of kit seem slightly amateurish and unfinished from time to time.
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