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MythTV Vs. TiVo, Round 2
Egadfly writes with a comparison of the open source MythTV and the highly commercial TiVo Series 3. "How different are the two systems' available remote control devices and their graphic interfaces when it comes to ease of use? Which product should you choose if your HD signal comes OTA or if you plan to use CableCARDs? And what software features (present and future) can you expect with each product? Will loopholes in FCC regulations and cable company encryption ultimately squeeze out MythTV and other open source players?"
Nice try! The live TV side of Myth might be flaky - probably due to hardware constraints as much as the program - but for playing downloaded video It Works, I've never had a problem like that which you mention. And I use an nfs diskless solution too, never has it not booted. And thanks to power cuts it has gracelessly shut down several times, but so far so good.
Broadcast TV is dead, by the way.
TIVO owner: Hold on guys, while I play this show I recorded on my tivo.
TIVO: Sorry, I've deleted that show because a local company 'accidentally' set the macrovision copy protection flag on the broadcast.
There are some pragmatic benefits to using free software to store/watch/stream/listen to/etc your media.
(and its not as hard as you make out)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
From the article, about the User Interface: I want screenshots! Not some excuse why it's hard to judge. "This is my seven page article. however, it's a hard subject. therefore I'm going to write how hard it is to write about this subject"
Until I can get CableCARD support in a home-built Linux box (and I know I never will) Myth is completely irrelevant. A set-top DVR is the only choice for a more-than-minimally-functional system.
Granting someone else control over your box may* make it easier for you to use, but it sure as hell isn't your box anymore.
Back on the topic of media specifically, I'm afraid that most people have no idea how much the BigCo's are pushing for control. If people knew, would they care? I doubt most people will even see a problem with broadcast flags and devices that refuse to play content...
People are complacent, and have learned to accept a (imho) fairly high level of suck in exchange for not having to think.
(*But no guarantee ... while I have no 1st hand experience with it, Vista reads like a nightmare compared to any reasonable modern distro)
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
This is a device for watching television. You are building/buying this device so that you can sit in front of the idiot box like a slack-jawed yokel for thousands of hours. You're complaining that the 5 hours learning how to set-up MythTV is the waste?
What rate do you want to bill the universe for your TV-watching hours? Go for $450/hr; it sounds even more impressive. Your TV watching hobby might be costing you $200,000 per year, OMFG!
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Frankly, MediaPortal and the new Vista MCE are heads and shoulders about the rest and have the added benefit of being able to use Windows drivers which means everything on the planet is and will be supported.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I know you're wrong because I tried to do exactly this before I went and bought a Series 3 Tivo. The only way to have a DVR for encrypted HD is to get a Tivo or a POS cableco DVR. Your setup (unless you have some magical HD capture card that nobody makes) can only record encrypted HD content that has been downconverted to SD, and even if you did have HD capture, it would be re-encoded.
Oh, and put a watt-meter on your cable box+MythTV combo. I'll bet you spend more on additional electricity than you would on the monthly Tivo service fee.