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About Freevo

Freevo is an open source HTPC media centre. It integrates PVR / DVR functionality along with music, video, gaming, home automation and more. It is written in python and uses existing popular software such as mplayer, xine, vlc and skype. Freevo also provides access to popular services such as YouTube, Flickr, Apple trailers, IMDB, Hulu Desktop and more through integrated plugins.

Primarily aimed at the Linux platform it is also possible to run on OSX and for the determined on Windows. It can be controlled via keyboard and mouse, IR remote, network app or through it's web interface (Android and IOS apps are planned). Freevo can record and display TV from multiple sources (analogue, DVB-C/T/S, set top box via composite with IR blaster). You can pause or rewind live TV and schedule recordings via the on screen EPG or remotely via a web interface.

Update: Freevo.org shutting down

Now 6 years later, Freevo is more or less dead. Kodi is so much more powerfull and Python 2.x is end-of-support. Therefore, I will not renew the freevo.org domain. I will update the code on github with my current mail address and copy the homepage to sf.net and github.

I still use some parts of the code and maybe, one day, some parts my get a new life. As for me, I hope to update kaa.metadata to Python 3.x and create a thetvdb library out of kaa.webmetadata.

Good Bye and thanks to all people involved in the project

Dischi

25th December, 2019

Freevo in a dormant state

I failed to get a release of Freevo 2 out. I changed too much, a complete rewrite and some parts are also written three or four times. My fault, I know -- an error made years ago and when noticed, it was too late to change it. And since I started a new job four years ago my time working on Freevo got smaller and smaller every month. Jason also is completely busy with his job.

I still say Freevo 2 is ready to use, but I will not release it. I'm not sure it works with the latest clutter or gstreamer, I only know it works for me. It lacks many important features such as DVD playback (I have a BluRay Player) and TV recording. I do not need it and I don't have time to code it.

Besides that, XBMC has a much bigger community, UPnP is enough for many people (even I use NAS plus BubbleUPnP plus TV sometimes) and new development such as Chromecast will reduce Freevo's usefulness even further.

I will continue to use Freevo 2, I may even write an Android client for it (after learning Python with Freevo which was useful for getting my current job, hacking Android is a good next step), but I see no real future for Freevo without a live community and more people hacking code. If someone contributes something, I will add it. If someone needs help to get Freevo 2 running, I will provide it.

Since we also lack someone maintaining the server we host and I do not want to pay for something we don't need, I shut it down. This means the SVN and the Wiki will be gone. The code is already on github and will remain there. A static backup of the 1.x Wiki is linked here; the 2.0 WiKi is more outdated and wrong than correct and therefore, it is not visible here. The mailing list on SF will continue and so will the mail server hosting freevo.org and all mail addresses will continue to be valid.

Maybe after some time someone resurrects Freevo. I would love to pass the maintainership over to someone just as I took it over from Krister years ago. Maybe someone takes the kaa-stuff and writes something new and better. I'm happy to assist and I think the same is true for Jason. Maybe I will release something someday based on the current code.

It was a great time, I learned a lot and it was much fun.

Dischi

16th February, 2014

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