"...isn't an A/V company", "patent violations".

Rene, you're not helping your case. Those companies are not your typical US or Japanese receiver/pre-pro manufacturers, nor are they licensors of surround processing technology like Dolby Labs and DTS are. None of the regular A/V companies are offering products designed to accomodate hackers. It doesn't. I named two sources with panned/off-centre dialogue that I tested and neither of them exhibited any collapse towards the centre when I was using a centre speaker (vs configuring the centre speaker as 'none'). Yes, yes, your "mathematical analysis" shows that it does. But you really ought to get an actual centre speaker and try it out in the real (physical) world.

We appreciate everyone's input and suggestions with regards to issues encountered with the Model 990. Each of your comments about potential software issues is being tested in our lab, and we are examining all of your requests for added features and functionality. This feedback will enable us to work with the Model 990's engineering team so that a software upgrade can be developed. Please understand that our goal is to deal with as many of your concerns as we can, but in some cases it is possible that a limitation in the hardware platform, rather than operating software/firmware may limit our ability to fix a particular item.

Please understand that the development of a software update is not an overnight task, as we must not only get the new system, but do a complete re-validation of the entire program to be sure that we do not "break" anything in the process of adding new functionality or fixing a bug. We'll keep you posted along the way as to our progress.

Regards,

The Outlaws

Who cares if a purchaser of a product uses it to violate a patent? It isn't the vendor's problem (unless that's the sole purpose of the product, and even that is a questionable legal position).

Perhaps your computer should be removed from you lest you write a program that violates a patent, and nothing be modifiable. Your car's hood should be welded shut lest you try to change the oil yourself.

The Roku HD1000 is fairly open, provides HD TS and PS playback, and has the capability for code on it to intercept the audio bitstream, regardless of encoding.

Many have written useful extentions to this platform, with the blessing of the manufacturer, and have enhanced it's functionality greatly as a result.

I could note that the OSS community has produced a hackable A/V component via MythTV and a stock PC, but then you'd likely argue that it isn't "ordinary", or an "A/V" component", or manufactured in the U.S./Far East. Perhaps that you'd argue it wasn't build in a particular city, and discount it on those grounds.

Even then, what about the MCE? It comes as close to an "ordinary, made in the USA, A/V component" as it gets and, though not actively encouraged by the manufacuter, is hackable.

The bottom line is that some manufacturers of consumer electronics are embracing and encouraging hackability of their products, and I believe that Outlaw could benefit from this same philosophy and this could result in workarounds being available for bugs discovered in the field sooner rather than later.

...in some cases it is possible that a limitation in the hardware platform, rather than operating software/firmware may limit our ability to fix a particular item.

Two things would be very nice to know:

1) What reported bugs have been verified by Outlaw (e.g. my inability to specify no Centre speaker)?

2) What IS the hardware architecture, at least in sufficient detail so an engineer could determine whether a particular feature/bug could be implemented/fixed in software? At the very least a switching/mixing/multiplexing diagram would make clear what kinds of transcoding to which outputs is/is not possible.

Rene:

I think you are answering your question for yourself without realizing it. Outlaw is in a segement of the market where people want to tinker with settings and equipment placement (speakers) but not have to deal with the arcane world of software. It would appear that they do a good job for that type of customer. It doesn't mean you are right or wrong, it simply means that you are looking for something that I'd guess 99.9% of their customers don't want, don't need, and wouldn't know what to do with if it was there.

IF you have the desire to fool with software, than by all means avail yourself of the products you have mentioned that do that. Remember, as a software professional, your interests and knowledge are considerably different from the average "I just want to watch my home theater and not have to think about it" person.

The risks to Outlaw of having people mucking around with the inner SW of the 990 or any other product strongly outweigh the benefits. I'd hate to be Scott or one of their other customer service people on the other end of the phone when a customer calls after loading hacked software that has a bug in it that might corrupt the microprocessor or memory -- or ever worse. The novice will make their life difficult and insist that Outlaw fix it even though it isn't their fault.

One more thing:

Unlike in OSS land, it may well be the case that there are aspects of the 990's HW platform that they would not want to reveal. WHy should they tell their competitors what they do and how they do it? OSS is a game; Outlaw is a business where I have to presume they would like to make money and stave off competitors if they have something unique.

Podboy:

One does not have to reveal all with OSS, contrary to popular belief, only all that is tightly bound together. In particular, one does not have the reveal the bits of the "operating system" on which the free code runs. There is plenty of room to reveal some, but not all, and retain a competetive advantage.

Roku does not, for example, disclose how to defeat Macrovision or CSS. They can't for contractual reasons related to licencing these techologies. And they don't have to.

Of course, any tinkering voids the warranty. The point that you miss is that while .1% might tinker, 50, 70, or 99.9% of the user base might find the hack useful, and this increases the value of the base unit to them. Nothing stops Outlaw from taking a free hack, selling it at a price, to provide a hacker-provided feature with the benefit that the user does not void their warranty applying it (because Outlaw "approved" it). More likely, they'd include it for free in the next release of the firmware on the basis that the additional features will attract more customers.

The 990 has a USB port. Audio and (in maintenance mode) software can be downloaded to it. How hard would it be to send OSD information from a PC to the 990 via USB, such as Caller ID information gleaned from a modem when the phone rings? What about local weather updates? These are the kinds of possibilities that opening the unit up to hackers offers.

The device is huge (mostly because of the daughter board architecture). How hard would it be to include a mini-ITX board, and possibly hard drive, to turn it into an integrated MythTV box/pre/pro? That would be an ideal marriage of front end software and backend firmware/hardware, with the "restricted bits" (i.e. DD decoding, etc.) kept separate from the open bits? Heck, one could likely do it with little info about the 990 since it could all be done via IR control and hooking up a few signal lines internally instead of externally. (Outlaw: a daughter board accepting internal spdif and video connections would be nice!)


At this point, I'd simply like to see a top-level architectural diagram of the data and signal flow within the 990. It would clear up a lot of the errors and ambiguities in the manual.

I'm not suggesting that (to use the auto analogy) Ford provide engineering drawings for their engines. I'm just saying that good things can happen all around if the hood is not welded shut.

The people who hack consumer hardware know full well that they've voided their warranty.

I've been watching this thread with some interest for several days now. A few thoughts occur to me.

First, Outlaw does not pick up a blank piece of paper, create a design, and build the design by themselves. They use processors and other components that are designed and manufactured by other companies (Cirrus, Analog Devices, etc). They use processing protocols that are regulated by their originators (Dolby Labs, DTS). In some cases (such as the Model 990), they use a basic design that was developed by another company (Etronics, in the case of the 990) and then modify it to suit their needs (software changes, additional features such as DVI switching). At each stage in that, limitations are imposed on what they can reveal to the consumer and on how much they can differ from the mandated requirements - specifically the Dolby and DTS processing requirements. Outlaw has to adhere to agreements made with folks like Etronics and Dolby. We are not talking about whether or not the hood of our car is welded shut, since it is really not an appropriate parallel either. We've gotten a lot of good information already - the RS-232 information has been handed out freely, which is not always the case (that information is often restricted to custom installers because the manufacturers don't want to customer support calls associated with the average consumer trying to use it).

I do think that it might be useful to have a supplement to the manual, possibly as an accompanyment to whatever software update they are looking into, with some "advanced user" tidbits (signal path diagrams, bass management behavior description, and so forth). I don't think it is reasonable to ask them to open the books on the inner workings of the design to the point where we can start hacking the software to the degree that has been kicked around in this thread. Software is a huge part of how one of these units works, and opening it up to be "hacked" would be very close to the same thing as Ford handing us the design documents on their engine and powertrain. That's why you don't see Anthem or Sunfire or Lexicon letting us know how to make changes to the software on their processors. That's also why we don't have - and presumably won't have - the sort of architectural diagrams and software information on the 990.

gonk: Look at what Roku has done with the HD1000, a.k.a. Photobridge. They've opened it up quite a bit despite being constrained by the very types of license agreements you describe. I should know: I used to work for the company that provided them with the Xilleon X225 (or was it the 220?) on which the HD1000 is based, and was quite familiar with it's capabilties.

I do think that a basic architectural/block diagram of signal flow and processing would be a good start, together with the type of technical information like RS-232 command/status protocol. An appendix to the manual, perhaps available for a small fee, with a signed acknowledgement that Outlaw provides no guaranteed support for the information within, would be a great start.

For what it's worth, the RS-232 information is right here .