linux Devices posted a story about a new Linux-based DVR from a company called Neuros that is going into beta specifically for Linux-hackers.  This looks pretty cool.  It would be fun to play with if I had a spare $230.  But that price point is too high for me when I've got so many cheap computers at home and mythtv to play with.  Then again, it has a no-questions asked return policy which means I could review it for some magazine to see how it can be hacked (in a good way, not an evil way) and then return it.  Of course, that still requires that I have a spare $230 that can be allocated to the project until I get a refund, and if refunds take as long as rebates then I might as well say goodbye to that cash for another year.

Looking at the hardware specs , it appears the device is meant to record and playback, though it doesn't appear to have any storage locally attached.  Apparently you're expected to connect a USB 2.0 compliant external storage device to it (this might include iPods, if I understand it correctly).  Given the price of the DVR it seems unusual that, to use it at all, you need to purchase another devices especially when external storage devices tend to be much more expensive than internal storage systems.  You can, according to the Linux developer notes on the wiki, provide an nfs server for the device in order to use with a Linux server.  I just wonder if recording over NFS will be fast enough.  Or reliable enough.

Information on being part of the beta program can be found on the Neuros web site.

Despite my intrepidation over missing storage options, this still looks pretty cool.  I'd love to build one of these puppies.  Or at least work on building the embedded distribution for it.