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PVR's Head-to-Head: MythTV vs. Microsoft MCE
asciimonster writes "AnandTech has completed its second review of set-top box Personal Video Recorders. After checking out the Linux-based MythTV, previously covered here on slashdot, they compared it to Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004.
'Our analysis has proved that though Media Center Edition 2004 is a boxed package that is easy to set up and configure, it looks amazingly beautiful, has great features such as On-Demand content, and is fully supported by Microsoft. However, for the enthusiast, MythTV takes the gold for its greater support for a variety of hardware and software codecs.'"
Unfortunately, we have a large issue with the amount of disk space that the MPEG2 codec consumes. A 15-minute clip of video can take as much as 400MB. MythTV does not perform much better when video is downloaded at high quality, but we have the option to transcode, or re-render the MPEG stream into something a little more versatile. For example, we can compress our cartoon captures down to a lower quality MPEG1 codec without sacrificing much quality; or with a XviD plugin, we can transcode our entire library into MPEG4 in the background. Note that we are using the same Sempron 3100+ processor in both machines!
How well would the transcoding to XViD work when they have sacrificed the CPU to the encoding gods? Wouldn't the machine take a serious hit trying to record and transcode at the same time when they aren't using a hardware encoder?
In this analysis, we are taking video capture from analog cable. We are able to capture digital cable from a digital cable feed as well, but it requires the MCE machine to use a special IR module that actually controls the digital cable box. This can be done with MythTV under LIRC as well.
I have a Tivo and attempted to use the IR modules to control it before caving in and getting the serial control. From what I read the IR control is a pain in the ass and switches channels extremely slowly giving you a lag feel which for some is rather annoying. They don't mention that in this review though.
Of course, on the MythTV machine, we are actually able to skip the commercials entirely. MythTV surpasses MCE completely in this respect. During our tests, 9 out of 10 commercial breaks were skipped flawlessly. ReplayTV's accuracy may be slightly higher than this, but for a free solution, Myth does an excellent job.
This is a minor annoyance for me being a Tivo user. I really wish I could easily do this. FF'ing the commercials is easy and the Tivo does do a good job once you get the hang of it but I would LOVE to see them just gone completely.
From what I can see MCE is really beautiful. You get what you pay for though. I'd love to have the time to play with MythTV (and buy all the hardware) but it seems like you can get the package complete with your DRM'd OS from MS with little pain.
Honestly I am glad that I went w/even less painful option of Tivo but that's me.
The biggest problem I remember them having the first time was the Myth (and Linux) install. Then in this review they go with KnoppMyth and gloss over the 20 minute setup...
Mod Me, Bee-yotch!!!
I looked into this last year, but the holding out point was the cost...it didn't seem to be cheap enough to warrant not buying a Tivo. Still, you wouldn't have to pay the monthy fee (yech!)
Has anyone 'rolled their own' and have a price/features overview? Is it worth it yet?
CBSDFEW@#$%^&*))(
free ipod and free gmail!
It seems great for cable, but how well does it interface with a satellite-based service such as DirecTV? Since in that case, all tuning is controlled by the receiver, MythTV would be helpless - unless you could wire an IR emitter to it. But even then, the software would still have only passive control over the receiver (what if it goes to change a channel, but the reciever is off?).
Is there databases out there operating like CDDB for TV shows? I always thought this is what would (eventually) kill the monthly pay Tivo like services.
That would have the 'wow' factor that would make me start to build one of these MythTV beasts.
PCBVS&D*
free ipod and free gmail!
Personally I couldn't care about either live or recorded television. I want on demand content integrated into the interface, and so far only MCE does this. Tivo owners will get this too if things go well. The race for the living room has just begun.
I'm curious to know where Freevo stands in all of this. I installed MythTV and found it to be very clunky. I recently installed Freevo from the debian packages and had it up and running in literally 30 minutes! It seems a lot smoother than MythTV when using it, and it seems to be more extensible. On the downside all of the Freevo setup is done by editing a text file, but I've found it to be more solid than MythTV so far.
Admittedly I only looked at MythTV for about a day on and off. Does anybody here with more experience with MythTV have an opinion of how MythTV and Freevo compare?
I would LOVE to see [commercials] just gone completely ... I am glad that I went w/even less painful option of Tivo but that's me."
It's not too late to renounce your youthful indiscretion and come over to the dark side. ReplayTV, no commercials, no DRM, internet show sharing...
Da Blog
It doesn't have support for ATI AIW products. Granted, that isn't their fault.
You can compare features, but until you can compare hardware, it's difficult to say which is more functional for the average user.
That said, I'd go with MythTV just to keep from sending cash to Redmond.
I never could get a good output signal using either a 27" tube or 65" rear projection.
It really put me off of PVRs. But now I do have 3 TiVos which are very popular with everyone in the house...
But does anyone *really* output their PVR (MS or Myth) to an actual TV? (or better yet--modulate it into a housewide video distribution system)?
You should be mindful of the codec. The .dvr-ms files that MCE produces are ENORMOUS and you can't do a flippant thing with them. I've searched for recoders but my efforts have been fruitless...maybe they're out there now but I don't care anymore as I have myth working mostly OK now.
:P
With Myth, you can automagically transcode to DivX in the background, and have the ability to store far more video files in the same amount of space. Thus, Myth lets your ass-groove flourish because you're not getting up nearly as much to go to Fry's to buy a new hard drive to store recordings.
It should also be noted that the latest MythTV also has direct DVD ripping, and has the live TV in the on-screen guide. KnoppMyth should be incorporating this in the future.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The review adequately covered the TV watching aspects but oddly enough only covered the DVD and CallerID(?) plugins. What about MythGame, MythMusic, MythWeb, MythNews, MythWeather, MythVideo, etc? Does WinMCE have something like these?
The reviewer also seemed to imply that the only way to get an MPEG4 is to record it in the default codec and then transcode it in the background to MPEG4. You can record directly from the card to Mpeg4 (if you have a software based card).
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
You could go water cooling or go with an architecture that doesn't need cooling but that will either drive the price up or the CPU power of the system down. Or both.
I'm just curious if the systems they built at the quoted prices would be something you'd want running in the living room 24x7...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...the only guy working on a linux driver for a MyHD mdp-120 card packed up and went on a Mormon quest until Nov. 2005. http://myhd.sourceforge.net/
Actually it seems to be more like saying:
Of course neither one is really accurate; analogies never are. It depends on what's important to you, in the end. MythTV supports a large set of plugins you'll never find from MS (games, ripping, etc.). Plus it's more fun and hackable, and you can get it prepackaged.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I haven't read every single comment yet, but I've read more than half, and UNBELEAVABLY not a single person has mentioned Snapstream's Beyond TV. I've been using this for a while now and it beats the snot out of a TIVO. First, using two PVR250's I can record two things at the same time, and watch a third program from the Library. This is great for Thursday's because Survivor and The Apprentice are on at the same time. You can skip commercials with just 1 button press. Shows can be automatically compressed to WMV format in the background saving TONS of space. Shows can be burned to DVD's if you want to save space (but with 510Gigs it's not a big problem). This is done at a low priority so you don't notice any performance hit. If your CPU cycles are needed for something else the encoder waits until the CPU has more cycles to spare. Channel lineups are provided free from a web server, this means no monthly fees. Shows can be scheduled to be recorded from ANY COMPUTER WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION. This means if I'm at work watching TV and something comes on TV that I want to record I just type in my Beyond TV server address, click the channel, and click record. This can be done from many wireless phones too. It's easy to upgrade parts if you need to (more space, HDTV capture card, yada yada). Someone mentioned the drawbacks of using an IR emitter to control your box, but most/all serious HTPC users use a serial cable to control their box/dish. Doing it this way is much more stable than using an IR device. And I challenge anyone to watch my TV and notice any quality difference between Beyond TV versus straight cable, or a TIVO. All my shows are recorded at 8Mb/s, but if that's not good enough, PVR250 cards have the ability to record up to 12Mb/s max. Top notch. I'm just really surprised no one has mentioned this software yet. --Jon
Coming from a UK background, I would have used a semicolon myself. As in:
..."
"Its official; I'm the
But if I were to use something other than a semicolon, I would choose a comma rather than a full stop.
I have a hard time believing the ReplayTV option is much better
Here's the thing... the ReplayTV commercial skip really is that much better. The fact that it's so much better than Tivo is one major reason the TV companies spent so much time suing the various RTV owners but left Tivo untouched.
As it records the RTV monitors the record stream and analyzes for commercial break cues such as fade-outs, fade-ins, sudden increases in volume normalization, stuff like that.
Along with the MPGs it writes, it also writes associated XML info files with chunk sequence information. So during playback, if you decide to "Skip Commercials", then the RTV just jumps right past those ad blocks. You don't even get a notification that they were there. No fiddling with remote buttons. It Just Works.
Well, around 95% of the time it works. For those other times, you can of course hit a manual 30-second skip on the remote, or customize a button for longer skips, or punch in the number of minutes you want to jump ahead. I'd imagine the Tivo is similar.
The fact that the RTV tags the content chunks has some cool applications. The first is that when and if you decide to move the MPGs over the LAN to your PC/Mac/Linux for editing or conversion to DVD or XVid, then with the excellent RTVTools and ReVue you can choose to transcode the entire stream, or just output the commercial-stripped stream. It's a time saver.
The second cool feature is a consequence of tagging the commercials: inverting playbvack to skip all content and play only commercials. I use this for the Superbowl - just play it back on "Content Skip" and you don't have to fast-forward through several hours of tedious homo-eroticism and tight bums but can just sit back and watch all the adverts uninterruped.
And as for hacking your Tivo to add extra disks and network connectivity, then Bravo! But you know all those things come standard with ReplayTV, right, and the network sharing is unencumbered by HMO's clunky DRM?
Da Blog
Unfortunately, to do a real review, you would have to 'live with' each solution for at least a week to get a good feel for it.
There are a ton of solutions these days:
SageTV - Windows
SnapStream - Windows
BeyondTV - Windows
MythTV - Linux
MCE - MCE...
Tivo - Linux Dedicated Hardware
ReplayTV - ? Dedicated Hardware
EyeTV - OS X
Now THAT would be a nice roundup. Start with a feature comparison chart, price, compare the look and feel, reliability, benefits, expandability, etc... Then really get in to how living with each system was and how good the support and updates are, since PVR software is changing so rapidly.
Unfortunately, looking at some specs on a web page just doesn't give you a good feel for what you are getting with PVR's.