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.