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Yeah, naturally the h/w encryption/random num. gen. on the VIA Nehemiah will be faster for doing that. I don't actually use it with any sort of encryption anyway (it's a network boot frontend for MythTV) and so uses plain old NFS (I trust my network, but keep all my media on an encrypted partion (the vast majority of it is morally legal - copies of my own CDs/records/DVDs etc., and recordings of TV etc. but I want to be able to prove a point should anyone come snooping :)

That said, I was wrong when I said that the Nehemiah was not i586 compatible, it is. It is not however i686 compatible. It does report that it is, but I believe from previous experience that there are a couple of instructions it doesn't support, and various VIA forums etc. support this (though I could be miss informed). I do know that it will not boot with a stock pre-compiled kernel from Mandriva for the last few versions as these are compiled for i686. You have to use the i586 kernel which is explicitly compiled for i586 processors for it to work.

Actually come to think of it, it may not be the 10k Nehemiah that doesn't work, but one of the slower, 600MHz versions.... I can't fully remember just now.

Anyways, this has gone a little off topic now, so it's probably enough nonsense from me :)

Mark Shuttleworth and now Linus Torvalds seem realize the value of KDE's superior architecture, on which which many must-have KDE apps. These apps don't have any gnome equivalents that are nearly as useful and feature-rich:

AmaroK music player -- The most feature-rich and polished music player on the Free Software platform.

K3b -- Best CD and DVD authoring program with intuitive wizards, on the fly transcoding between WAV, MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, normalization of volume levels, CDDB, DVD Ripping and DivX/XviD encoding, Save/load projects, automatic hardware detection/calibration and much more.

DigiKam -- The most feature-rich application for digital photo management.

Wireless Assistant -- Most user-friendly app for connecting to wireless networks. Managed Networks Support, WEP Encryption Support, Per Network (AP) Configuration Profiles, Automatic (DHCP, both dhcpcd and dhclient) and manual configuration options, Connection status monitoring, etc

KDE Education -- Educational (Science, Literature, Geography, etc) programs for children. Could play a big role in whether school districts decide to use Free Software in their classrooms.

Konqueror File Manager -- Embeded image/PDF/music/video viewing (via KMPlayer [kde.org]) and a tree-view arrangement of the filesystem familiar to Windows users (Nautilus doesn't come anywhere close)

KDE Control Center -- Centralized location for desktop control. Controls _all_ common aspects of the KDE applications: language, power settings, special effects, icon and window themes, shadows, shortcuts, printers, privacy, etc. This is what makes KDE so well integrated -- all KDE apps respect changes made here, so they all have the same feel. SUSE has even made YAST a module of the KDE control center so users can access distro-specific settings from here. Compare this to the dismembered approach Red Hat (and other gnome distros) have been forced to adopt in the absence of a centralized gnome control center. (ie. a bunch of individial programs named redhat-config-**** that nobody can ever remember)

Seamless, transparent network file access on SMB, FTP, SSH and WebDav networks from _any_ KDE application.

Kaffeine -- The most polished FOSS movie player.

MythTV -- The most advanced analog and digital TV viewer/recorder in the Free Software world (built using QT).

Baghira -- A native QT style that faithfully imitates OS X eyecandy, aimed at new users coming from the Mac world.

Klik -- Gives non-expert access to bleeding edge versions of apps without requiring any compilation or permanent installation.

KDE and QT also make up a technically superior platform for developers, drastically lowering the learning curve for programmers new to FOSS development. KDE apps can be built from the ground up using the best development tools in the Free Software world (which also happen to be built on QT/KDE):

Kdevelop for syntax highliting, application templates, and project organization.

QT designer for GUI development

Quanta -- Rich web development environment for PHP, CSS, DocBook, HTML, XML, etc with advanced context sensitive autocompletion, internal preview and more.

They're releasing boxen that run MythTV? Sweet! I'm sick of Apple releasing "easy" software that doesn't do even one fiftieth of what I want a box to do.

Mythtv already has this feature. It is called time stretch and has been around since 0.17, nearly 1 year. I can generally watch a "1 hour" show in a little over 30 minutes with Timestretch set to 1.1, and using commercial skipping.

From the 0.17 release notes at http://www.mythtv.org/:
# "Timestretch". Though, it's really 'time-compression'. This allows the user to adjust the playback speed slightly, but keeps the audio at the same pitch. If you're recording a lot of shows, timestretch lets you get through them faster. =)

MythTV running on pcHDTV-3000 and are a killer combination for viewing and recording HDTV on Linux. Even unencrypted QAM is supported.

The pcHDTV forum is very informative if you want to set up your own PVR on Linux.

Screw MS MCE - Use http://www.mythtv.org/

Good news all round, it would seem. :)

Indeed, here are some must-have KDE apps that are certainly going to help SuSE's popularity as a desktop operating system :
AmaroK music player -- Intuitive, powerful, good-looking music player. Supports transfers to/from iPods and many audio formats.

K3b -- Best CD and DVD authoring program with intuitive wizards, on the fly transcoding between WAV, MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, normalization of volume levels, CDDB, DVD Ripping and DivX/XviD encoding, Save/load projects, automatic hardware detection/calibration and much more.

DigiKam -- The most feature-rich application for digital photo management.

Wireless Assistant -- Most user-friendly app for connecting to wireless networks. Managed Networks Support, WEP Encryption Support, Per Network (AP) Configuration Profiles, Automatic (DHCP, both dhcpcd and dhclient) and manual configuration options, Connection status monitoring, etc

KDE Education -- Educational (Science, Literature, Geography, etc) programs for children. Could play a big role in whether school districts decide to use Free Software in their classrooms.

Konqueror File Manager -- Embeded image/PDF/music/video viewing (via KMPlayer [kde.org]) and a tree-view arrangement of the filesystem familiar to Windows users (Nautilus doesn't come anywhere close)

KDE Control Center -- Centralized location for desktop control. Controls _all_ common aspects of the KDE applications: language, power settings, special effects, icon and window themes, shadows, shortcuts, printers, privacy, etc. This is what makes KDE so well integrated -- all KDE apps respect changes made here, so they all have the same feel. SUSE has even made YAST a module of the KDE control center so users can access distro-specific settings from here. Compare this to the dismembered approach Red Hat (and other gnome distros) have been forced to adopt in the absence of a centralized gnome control center. (ie. a bunch of individial programs named redhat-config-**** that nobody can ever remember)

Seamless, transparent network file access on SMB, FTP, SSH and WebDav networks from _any_ KDE application.

Kaffeine -- The most polished FOSS movie player.

MythTV -- The most advanced analog and digital TV viewer/recorder in the Free Software world (built using QT).

Baghira -- A native QT style that faithfully imitates OS X eyecandy, aimed at new users coming from the Mac world.

Klik -- Gives non-expert access to bleeding edge versions of apps without requiring any compilation or permanent installation.

KDE and QT also make up a technically superior platform for developers, drastically lowering the learning curve for programmers new to FOSS development. KDE apps can be built from the ground up using the best development tools in the Free Software world (which also happen to be built on QT/KDE):

Kdevelop for syntax highliting, application templates, and project organization.

QT designer for GUI development

Quanta -- Rich web development environment for PHP, CSS, DocBook, HTML, XML, etc with advanced context sensitive autocompletion, internal preview and more.

BKSys environment for a complete replacement of the autotool chain (libtool

That's assuming that you knew it was coming up and scheduled a recording in advance.

Mythtv does all of that automatically. You just tell it what you want to record and it has the option to record it any time, any channel and even pick a different airing if it conflicts with another show with a higher priority. I love that thing.

MythTV home page

guide info downloaded from here

Just watch out for those marathons of your favorite show...grr.

The real issue is who is going to pay for the next generation of KDE development if SuSE isn't going to pay.

Mandrake, Kubuntu/Mark Shuttleworth, Trolltech seem realize the value of KDE's superior architecture, on which many must-have KDE apps have been built. These apps don't have any gnome equivalents that are nearly as useful and feature-rich:

AmaroK music player -- Steve Jobs' nightmare, the single greatest threat to Itunes on the Free Software platform.

K3b -- Best CD and DVD authoring program with intuitive wizards, on the fly transcoding between WAV, MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, normalization of volume levels, CDDB, DVD Ripping and DivX/XviD encoding, Save/load projects, automatic hardware detection/calibration and much more.

DigiKam -- The most feature-rich application for digital photo management.

Wireless Assistant -- Most user-friendly app for connecting to wireless networks. Managed Networks Support, WEP Encryption Support, Per Network (AP) Configuration Profiles, Automatic (DHCP, both dhcpcd and dhclient) and manual configuration options, Connection status monitoring, etc

KDE Education -- Educational (Science, Literature, Geography, etc) programs for children. Could play a big role in whether school districts decide to use Free Software in their classrooms.

Konqueror File Manager -- Embeded image/PDF/music/video viewing (via KMPlayer) and a tree-view arrangement of the filesystem familiar to Windows users (Nautilus doesn't come anywhere close)

KDE Control Center -- Centralized location for desktop control. Controls _all_ common aspects of the KDE applications: language, power settings, special effects, icon and window themes, shadows, shortcuts, printers, privacy, etc. This is what makes KDE so well integrated -- all KDE apps respect changes made here, so they all have the same feel. SUSE has even made YAST a module of the KDE control center so users can access distro-specific settings from here. Compare this to the dismembered approach Red Hat (and other gnome distros) have been forced to adopt in the absence of a centralized gnome control center. (ie. a bunch of individial programs named redhat-config-**** that nobody can ever remember)

Seamless, transparent network file access on SMB, FTP, SSH and WebDav networks from _any_ KDE application.

Kaffeine -- The most polished FOSS movie player.

MythTV -- The most advanced analog and digital TV viewer/recorder in the Free Software world (built using QT).

Baghira -- A native QT style that faithfully imitates OS X eyecandy, aimed at new users coming from the Mac world.

Klik -- Gives non-expert access to bleeding edge versions of apps without requiring any compilation or permanent installation.

KDE and QT also make up a technically superior platform for developers, drastically lowering the learning curve for programmers new to FOSS development. KDE apps can be built from the ground up using the best development tools in the Free Software world (which also happen to be built on QT/KDE):

Kdevelop for syntax highlighting, application templates, and project organization.

QT designer for GUI development

Quanta -- Rich web development environment for PHP, CSS, DocBook, HTML, XML, etc with advanced con

Some more must-have KDE/QT desktop applications:

K3b -- Best CD and DVD authoring program with intuitive wizards, on the fly transcoding between WAV, MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, normalization of volume levels, CDDB, DVD Ripping and DivX/XviD encoding, Save/load projects, automatic hardware detection/calibration and much more.

Klik -- Gives non-expert access to bleeding edge versions of apps without requiring any compilation or permanent installation.

KDE Control Center -- Centralized location for desktop control. Controls _all_ common aspects of the KDE applications: language, power settings, special effects, icon and window themes, shadows, shortcuts, printers, privacy, etc. This is what makes KDE so well integrated -- all KDE apps respect changes made here, so they all have the same feel. SUSE has even made YAST a module of the KDE control center so users can access distro-specific settings from here. Compare this to the dismembered approach Red Hat (and other gnome distros) have been forced to adopt in the absence of a centralized gnome control center. (ie. a bunch of individial programs named redhat-config-**** that nobody can ever remember)

Wireless Assistant -- Most user-friendly app for connecting to wireless networks. Managed Networks Support, WEP Encryption Support, Per Network (AP) Configuration Profiles, Automatic (DHCP, both dhcpcd and dhclient) and manual configuration options, Connection status monitoring, etc

MythTV -- The most advanced analog and digital TV viewer/recorder in the Free Software world (built using QT).

KDE Education -- Educational (Science, Literature, Geography, etc) programs for children. Could play a big role in whether school districts decide to use Free Software in their classrooms.

Quanta -- Rich web development environment for PHP, CSS, DocBook, HTML, XML, etc with advanced context sensitive autocompletion, internal preview and more.

Cervisia -- User-friendly GUI frontend for CVS.

Here's my chance to blab about the PVR I built myself. It's not pretty, but it runs great.
Here are the specs: Leadtek WinFast PVR 2000 TV/FM tuner card; P4 2.8E / ASUS P4P800; onboard sound; 512MB RAM; 80GB + 120GB HD; WinXP Pro.
The software I built uses: Windows Media Encoder SDK; Visual Basic 6; PHP; FireBird; Apache.
Using VB, I wrote code that goes to Zap2It and downloads 12 days worth of TV show programming and parses it into my FireBird DB. From there I have a web front end that lets you search/sort though shows. You can choose to record one show or create a rule that would record a certain show every time it's on. It also handles scheduling conflicts by prioritizing rules and doesn't record a show if it's been previously recorded.
The back end is a VB app that runs all the time and checks the FireBird DB for the next show to be recorded. When it finds one and it's time to start recording it issues a command line request to the Windows Media Encoder to start recording on channel x for x number of seconds. The size and audio/video bitrate are set using the encoder's profile editor.
The profile settings I use consist of: Windows Media Audio 9.1/Video 9; VBR quality base of 90 (usually has a video bitrate of just over 1000kbps); Video size 320 x 240. At these settings the CPU uses about 20% and 1hr worth of video is about half a GB.
I play the shows by streaming them to the Xbox running xbmc.
I also have a command line script that runs every night and deletes any shows that are older than 15 days. If I haven't watched it by then, it's not worth watching.
This setup has worked great for me for the last year. The next step would be to replace the whole setup with MythTV. I'd have the back end on my computer and the front end on the Xbox.

On slashdot everything is Microsoft's fault.

Where in the past bad things were attributed to the Devil, now its just Microsoft.

However the question arises, what would MythTV do with the same hardware?

The biggest issue with media centers is a very practical one: tuning. How do you tune channels from cable or satellite providers when a set top box provided by cable or satellite provider is essentially required?

Try myth tv maybe? http://mythtv.org/ Nice free alternitive for the people that hate windows media center (...ahem...)

I mean, it's so easy. All you have to do is go to your linux box, preferably with a custom Knoppix installation optimized for mythTV, but a red hat installation will do, just make sure you rebuild the kernel issuing all the right mantras.... then set up your partitions (be sure to choose the right filesystem), download and configure the appropriate mythTV packages that you wish to install (check your hardware of course and be sure you have the right video drivers and take a look at the docs for your sound card). Obviously check dependencies on all the components and also you might want to edit the usual files for something like this such as /etc/modprobe.conf. Make sure you get all the MythTV components, there should be 94 packages if you're installing on redhat, and check the dependencies for each one. You'll probably want an IR receiver so you can use remote too; find, download, configure, and install those packages too; you might want to fiddle with /etc/udev/rules.d/lirc.rules. Of course you'll have to set up MySQL to run at startup and issue the usual commands, things like mysql -u root -p < /usr/share/doc/mythtv-0.18.1/database/mc.sql to get things running; the rest will be handled after you set up mythTV. Then populate the database (check dependencies first!) and if all goes well, all you need to do is edit your crontab to take care of mythfilldatabase every night and then you can configure automatic startup. Configure whatever MythTV addons you want and you're done! It's that simple! Problems? Read the documentation! Then just think of all the many things you can buy with the $2 that you just saved with these simple steps.

YOURE ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!! "People who have ATi graphics cards and/or people who would rather buy such a graphics/DVR capable card from the local Best Buy or CompUSA instead of ordering a specialized Linux supporting card from a more obscure source." You can buy a Hauppauge WinPVR at Compusa, Circuit City, etc... http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/buy/wtob_us.html These cards are not obscure or specialized. They work well on many platforms and are easy to buy! These are hands down the most compatable / reliable PVR cards out there for Linux and they work well in Windows MCE. I am not going to crap on Windows MCE because it does have some nice features, but let me offer some insight to my ignorant friend. Regarding ATI - They have horrid Linux support. I have seen a handful of people successfully use their ATI TV Cards (Not AIW cards) for Myth. (http://www.mythtv.org/ The AIW series support just isnt there. However, the Nvidia driver support has been wonderful thus far. I set out to put together my own PVR. At first it was windows based due to the ease of setup and install. It sucked. It was resource greedy and there are subscription costs. I do not want to pay for a TV guide which should be free already. So began the MythTV install. I have successfully set Myth up on Fedora and KnoppMyth. Both are viable solutions depending on your experience. KnoppMyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/) is extremely easy to install and setup. You have a handful of hardware options. I use an Nvidia Ti5200, and old SB Live, and a new Hauppauge PVR250. Relatively cheap stuff in todays market. This system is incredible! You can configure multiple frontends (Including the nifty Xbox Frontend) on a single backend server, have a special server to cut commercials, or just one box to do it all. You have Mame, SNES9x, Nes support, RSS Feeds, a Web Browser, a web frontend to schedule from another pc..its great. So many people have done it now the documentation is very comprehensive. If you have ever played with a Linux box or built your own PC this project is not beyond your scope. Get off the microsoft bandwagon and dive into a real PVR. You will not regret it.

I, for one, have been interested in MythTV for a while. It's looks like a great F/OSS solution. Any others?

I'm shopping for DirecTV now, and was amazed that their 'free' PVRs come with a monthly fee! While the software PVRs get better and easier to install, I'm going to go that route to be free of fees and restrictions. So, the million dollar question, which is the best bet right now:

http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
or
http://www.mythtv.org/

or is there another option I'm missing?

TV, being linear, forces the ads to the exclusion of anything else, which is annoying in a different way.

Not necessarily.

Phillip.

using MythTV. Strips them out automatically. Sadly misses the odd one, but I have 'skip30' and 'back5' buttons on my remote to solve that - 7 or 8 quick clicks past the ads, then back to the start of the prog.

I haven't seen an ad in many months. TV has improved out of sight for me.

They are getting MUCH more restrictive with how and what you can record.

Also, considering that there's free and open source software out there (http://www.mythtv.org/) that turns any PC into a PVR, TiVo's backs are against the wall and recently they have been breaking things and limited what you can do with the shows you record.

They also recently added more commercials/advertisements that show up when you FF/RW.

Just a heads up. I know my one friend is wary he paid so much for a lifetime subscription, and other friends are sick of paying $13+ a month for a crippled PVR.

My big problem wouldn't be my PC slowly moving out of sync with the networks, it's the fact that the networks are purposefully going out of sync with each other. I am now routinely switching from a show that just ended to something in the next time slot that's already started. It's stupid, and it only makes me value television less.

There's a proposed patch for MythTV that'd make it handle this better - for example, recording a later showing or using the second tuner in order to ensure whatever pre-roll/over-record time you've specified is obeyed. See http://cvs.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/255. Unfortunately, as it stands, if the next program you're recording starts immediately after the previous one finishes, it'll record them in sequence and ignore the global pre-roll/over-record. Which is annoying. (I'm not sure what TiVo does; I've never used one.)

My current MythTV uptime is about 2 weeks, and then it was only down while I put in another 128 MB of memory (total 512). It's a combined backend, frontend built on a P3-700, and I've put altogether around $500 in parts into it.

You have to understand that it is a very powerful and complex system. You are going to have to make adjustments to get it working how you want. This is a feature -- you have absolute control. Of course, it is also Linux and MySQL, which means it may take some work to get MythTV how you want it. But once it's there, it's rock solid.

A Tivo will cost you at least $218 for the unit and the year contract, and at least $168 per year as long as you have it. Don't think this cost isn't there just because you're not paying up front. A lifetime subcription applies to the life of the box, not the subcriber. If you upgrade your box, you need a new subscription.

If you stop paying the subscription, you're left with a useless box. If you decide MythTV isn't for you, the hardware is still all yours, as well as everything you've recorded.

And I got it running by following directions.

Commercial Products and Services:

ReplayTV: TiVo's ancient nemesis, it also 'just works'. I can't say whether it is more user friendly than TiVo, but it is far more customer friendly.

Windows XP Media Center Edition: Yes, them. Choose from multiple manufacturers but expect to face Microsoft Corp's version of the 'personal' computing experience.

Hardware vendors are now pushing DVD/HD Recording devices quite a bit. RCA, Motorola and Panasonic have products available.

Service Providers like Comcast and DishTV are now providing time shifting hardware and tv-on-demand solutions. Check with your choice of cable or satellite service provider.

Hobbyist Solutions:

MythTV: The Open Source, Do-It-Yourself DVR. Expect to build your own machine and play around a bit before it works the way you want. (Linux)

Freevo: MythTV, but not. (Linux)

MediaPortal: Who ever said Open Source was limited to Linux software? (Windows)

Meedio: It was a community based freeware product (myHTPC) that morphed into a commercial product without warning. Still a reasonable alternative to Microsoft for PVR function on the Windows platform. (Windows)

eyeTV: This Mac product has me seriously considering picking up a Mini-Mac to use as a media center. (Apple)

SnapStream (Windows)

SageTV (Windows)

Chris-TV (Windows)

ShowShifter (Windows)

On a personal note, I purchased the ReplayTV when it was first released and am entirely satisfied with it. Plus, by purchasing early I have never had to pay a subscription fee for data that is freely available elsewhere. If there had been a subscription fee I would not have purchased it.

Dan

As far as aesthetics goes, I believe that MythTV is themeable, so you have a few choices.

Here are some screenshots to peruse.

I dithered between the idea of getting another Tivo (one not tied to DirectTV) and building a MythTV box. After their glitch, which allowed people to see the content restrictions that can be put in place, I've decided to build my own.

It'll take a few months though. Until then, I'll stick with the old fashioned way of recording. Setting the channels before I leave the house, and setting the VCR (crap that it is, It still records) to record.

H.

I was flirting with getting a tivo, but have reconsidered. I already have a DVD recorder, and as much of a pain as it is, I'm going to build a mythtv box. Tivo obviously does not care about their consumers, only about money and fellating hollywood.

It would be cool, but no:

Can I run MythTV on my TiVo?

http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythFeature s

All right, I wasn't too lazy. MythTV does support multiple tuners.

http://www.mythtv.org/

To build your own PVR with MythTV or BeyondTV. It's more work, but you have more control.

Tivo's sales dropped dramatically on their latest attempts to restrict what people do with their own bought-and-paid-for hardware.

also in other news, sales of MythTV increased for the 99th straight quarter at the new increased price of $0.00

Just one more good reason to bite the bullet, sit down, and build yourself a MythTV box.

There's a good walkthrough on building a MythTV box over on O'Reilly Digital Media, and another on the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Heck, with numbers like that it seems like Linux could run circles around XP Pro for audio/video apps such as streaming, recording, and playback!"

You say that like it's a hard mark to hit.

Indeed. I can record two shows and play one without the machine breaking a sweat, and it's just an Athlon XP. Others are doing the same with even less-powerful processors.

They already have

If you want an easy life, go get reference hardware for KnoppMyth

Let's make some calculations assuming that they're going to record all the DVB-T ("Freeview") content in the UK. I watch DVB-T in Spain using a MythTV box but the numbers should be roughly the same as for the UK.

45 mins recording of one channel = 1401390703 bytes
=> 1 hour = 1868520937 bytes
=> x 24 hours/day x 30.5 days/month = 1.37 TB per month per channel

Now there are about 30 freeview channels so we would need 41 TB of storage .... that's 82 500GB hard disks in RAID0! Which would occupy something like half a rack and use about 1kW of power ...

Even to record the 5 main channels would be nearly 7 TB - still a lot of noisy spinning hard disks to stick under the TV. This doesn't sound like a feasible idea with the size of today's hard disks.

My only question is, what's up with the Friday slots? Aren't those slots where shows usually die?

The X-Files used to be on Fridays IIRC, and it did OK up until the last season (when it jumped the shark). Besides, when you have MythTV, when a show is on is pretty much irrelevant.

MythTV or PVR nonexistant in your home? You poor thing.

Current HD Dvr's cannot cut it in the storage department and the lure of a DVD jukebox using MythTV http://www.mythtv.org/ is quite enticing.

However 100 DVD's require more than 1.5 tb though someone smart could build a system that takes the dvd and recodes it as divx 5.0 so you get menus and all the other nice things which would save on the space.

Course that all goes down the drain when HD Dvd's finally come out.

My parents were the same way, I bought them a DVD player and I found my dad still buying Spiderman on VHS. I built myself a MythTV box then reluctantly gave them my old ReplayTV unit. My parents fell in love with the ease of recording with it. I was surprised how much so. After using it it is difficult to go back to using a VHS again.

Yep Xbox+XBMC

I absolutely love it! (softmodded mine, so didn't even have to buy a modchip)

But as you state: Unless you need PVR...

Which is exactly what I want next ;-) So allow me to go a slightly bit off-topic (actually not exactly off-topic, more like an out-of-the-box view on topic)

Because I partly blame this story for the rejection of my own, as it happensed exactly half an hour ago:

I'm planning to assemble, install and configure a Mediaportal or MythTv box. I'm mainly interested in the TV-related features: Timeshifting, PVR, On Screen TV Program Guides; though I consider every extra feature a bonus. As for online TV Guides: I'm located in the dutch-speaking part of Belgium (Central Europe). I assume part of the Slashdot community has experience with at least one of the 2. What are the upsides, downsides? Which do you prefer, and why? And last bust not least: Where can one find _decent_ documentation? Ohw, and since I have a WinXP license don't botter argumenting that MythTv is cheaper than Mediaportal because of the OS.

Any hints on the Major differences between the Distros?

If you're looking to have this mythical convergence box you keep hearing so much about. Find out about current, less restrictive, alternatives.

Okay, you know us MythFans would get all foamy about that.

Well, I should say that I wanted to build a living room "jukebox" and DVR for parties, so my requirements might be a bit different from yours. I've used Mserv because I wanted a kiosk-type jukebox that would act like a real jukebox. That is, if no songs were selected, it would start picking songs based on ratings and how long it had been since they had last been played. I don't know of any other jukeboxes, Windows or Mac (perhaps someone can enlighten me) that will weight it's random selections like that. I wrote my own kiosk-style frontend using Python, but it appears that someone else has done the same thing with Shrill, complete with album art. I have a friend who's doing something similar with MPD, but I haven't used it myself. I've also played around with MythTV, which was nice because of the DVR features, but it didn't have the random feature that I wanted.

I'm already watching most of my TV on the subway on my way to work using my PSP. MythTV records what I want and then I use PSPvideo9 with avisynth to transcode with just a few mouse clicks.

I hope they do, but I don't have much faith. Intel, Hitachi, and other companies are already in bed with the entertainment industry (such as Sony) in terms of devising content control schemes to forbid transmission of flagged content over firewire to noncompliant devices (read: your PC-based PVR).

'Cause I think that the Mac Mini would be an excellent MythTV frontend. Of course, there are some binaries for OSX already, but they aren't optimized for HDTV yet. I have absolutely no idea, but perhaps linux development for this project would be ahead of the curve? (Would probably take someone with more knowledge than me to answer this one. :) )

It makes it all the more difficult for the entertainment cartel to fight the provision. Using the VCR as an example, going forward the VHS tape VCR is going to become extinct. Replacing it is digital. Tivo. MythTV, Knoppmyth. Digital cards/units like Air2PC, HD3000 cards, and other versions that will come out now that the broadcast flag has been temporarily set back. Ideally, you would want the same rights for these new products that you currently have with your VCR, right?

You can currently record a television program or movie from over-the-air or cable, pop the tape out, take it to your vacation home or friend or relative's home, and watch that movie while on vacation or at your friend or relative's house. You can even pop that tape into the mail and send it to your mom's house so you can watch it together when you stop in from your business trip on your way back home. Or visiting temporarily from school prior to going home for summer break. Or simply let your mom watch it while you stay at school for extra studies.

With a digital recording and a networked home, why bother with VCR tapes? You simply transfer the recording over the internet to your mom's home. And if you forget to do it while at your home or dorm, you can do it remotely by logging in to your home network and then transferring the program to your current location.

Digital Restrictions Management schemes all interfere with the above. Interfere with rights you already have when those programs exist in other forms, on other media. Why does innovation result in lost rights?

It is very important to frame your statements using the above examples. Simply stating that proposed copyright rules or digital restrictions management or treaties dealing with "IP" and "copyrights" will outlaw future VCRs is not enough. Legislators aren't experts. Far from it. You telling them that the proposed legislation or actions by them in a treaty will outlaw future VCRs falls flat on its face because they won't believe it. They didn't believe it with VCRs even though it almost happened (remember the Sony Betamax case and MPAA's suggestion of a $100.00 "tax" on each blank tape payable to them as compensation for "lost" sales like they had/have with the current $1.00 per blank VHS tape or whatever on blank cassettes or on other media in other countries outside US like Canada and elsewhere).

You need to frame your statement in clear, short and easy to understand terms. Something that the MPAA/RIAA will have a difficult time arguing against. They will use tactics like changing the subject, or use other unrelated examples to argue their point but when they do, unbiased legislators sometimes catch it. Always frame it over rights already held with VCRs against the same rights being lost in the new technology (digital, Tivo, transferring a recording to mom's home, etc.).

Include examples that highlight constituent backlash. Imagine what will happen when cable companies (not the studios, check the MythTV mail archives) enable a broadcast flag to prevent recording of Desperate Housewives. Or have the program expire a week later. Or prevent the transfer of the episode to mom's house while on vacation at her home and she can't operate the old VCR (or reset the clock) let alone the newfangled Tivo thing. That will start them thinking what happens if they allow the entertainment cartel legislation and their own wives can't record Desperate Housewives. Or their understanding on how they can't watch football on the big screen because the wives need to watch Desperate Housewives and can't Tivo it for later or to watch over someone else's house during a playoff game or the Super Bowl.

Each one of the examples above are good if you take the time to frame the statement properly. Sho

Along the same lines, a new company LxM Media http://lxmsuite.com/ has started up. They will be offering data services for MythTv http://mythtv.org/ as well as paying the Myth developers. From what I undstand, you pay $5/month, and you get bounty points to spend durring the month by putting them towards a specific feature or plugin. They will then pay the myth developer who implements the most popular function.

Not if you're doing HDTV. Check Jarod Wilson's howto for mythtv hardware recommendations.It even says in the MythTV Hardware docs: You'll need a faster processor for HDTV.

The hardware reports that I've read say that the AMD64 has some advantages over Intel's offerings, although they don't explicitly say that it's good for a mythtv box. The fact that AMD64's often run faster and cooler than Intel's chips seems to me to be useful, especially given if you're building a single box to do capture and playback, because it means a quieter machine.

The caveat to all this is the mythtv code hasn't been optimized for 64-bit processors yet, so it's required a lot of extra effort to get running. Check the mailing lists, there are several threads about that issue.

Well I am happy there isn't a broadcasting flag anymore but what about firewire ports on cable boxes?

If you look at the ruling "FCC Eases Digital TV Transition for Consumers."(PDF) it states that all digital cable boxes must have a firewire port. This port is used to control the box and record from it. Now this has been in effect for a while now, although it takes alot of effort and showing your cable company this pdf article to get them to give you a box that has a firewire port and that port is enabled. My concern is the ruling seems to also removes the FCC's power in this area as well.

And the worst part is MythTV just started supporting recording over firewire...