Albrechts Blog

Last year I bought an EMTEC S800 multimedia disk, that is a small MIPS based NAS including an analog and DVB-T tuner. This Linux driven device is more or less open for own modifications by default, so I installed a modified firmware image with open telnet account very soon and used it to overcome some restrictions of the default firmware image (e.g. it cannot enter NAS mode (=samba is running) automatically, but adding a start script for samba is of course easy once you have telnet access).

Community driven development is lead by the people at www.MHDWorld.de and has reached a very good state meanwile. A month ago I decided to switch to this firmware.

Installation is as easy as copying some files to an FAT32 formatted USB stick, booting into reflash mode by pluging power whith the power switch pressed for some seconds, and even keeps the recorded data on the disk.

Beside of the commandline access through telnet and ssh the most noteable additions of the MHDWorld image are

• a web interface to the device (by default it’s only accessible through SCART or HDMI) there is even an emulated remote control available through that web  interface
• web based file access as well as access to the device media db (which is much easier to edit that way)
• persistent NAS mode independent of the state of the other TV or DVR  functions
• ipkg addons, providing access to a wide range of optware stuff from the NSLU2 project
• a TV channel editor, a configuration backup option
• several streaming options, e.g. live streaming of TV programs using the “TimeShift” mode of the device.

So if you have this device (or  one of the compatible other ones, check MHDworld for available downloads) then read the installation help and give it a try.