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?"

Comments

Re:TiVo wins of course...

[LordSnooty]

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.

Re:TiVo wins of course...

[tijmentiming]

Move along, nothing to see here...

From the article, about the User Interface:

This is a hard category to judge, but I'll give the interface and ease of use award to TiVo's Series 3. Really, the category is almost too tight to call. While MythTV has some better UI choices and abilities, TiVo's standard interface is more simple to setup (turn on the box) and more people are use to it.

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"

CableCARD is all that matters

[RoboRay]

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.

Re:CableCARD is all that matters

[Lumpy]

Not to me.

I dont have cablecard and I enjoy all the shows in full HD.
I use the bittorrent card.

Full HD, no commercials, I get to watch them the next day anyways. Heck because the same guys release the TV shows I can easily write a script with wget and other apps to look for the torrents and download them automatically. It's just like a tivo except it extracts the commercials and compresses them to mpeg4 so it's even easy for me to take them on my laptop.

and yes, I dont give a rats about "legality" these same asshats that run these networks are forcing me to find the shows on bittorrent because they demand the cable companies scramble it.

Re:CableCARD is all that matters

[ballwall]

I don't necessarily agree that downloading is ok, but just wanted to play the devil's advocate for a second.

Take these scenarios:

1. Let's say you have a VCR recording over the air broadcasts, and it's set to record Heroes on Monday. It does and you happily watch your show, commercials and all. Morally acceptable, right?

2. Ok, same thing, except you fast forward through the commericials. Is this still morally acceptable? Really you're not upholding your part of the bargain (watching commercials) for the free TV you're getting.

3. Ok, so now you discover on Tuesday that your VCR didn't change timezones properly (something about DST being moved forward or some other nonsense), and didn't record Heroes for you. You download it with commericials and watch it. Is that bad? Is there a fundamental difference between this and the first scenario?

4. Or, say you download it with no commercials, how is that different at all than the second scenario?

Where exactly does downloading previously broadcast material become immoral?

Re:TiVo wins of course...

[dwandy]

I get this same argument discussing linux vs windows.

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)

Re:TiVo wins of course...

[indifferent children]

5 hours of your time just to make sure the components you buy are all compatible. At $200 the hour this is $1000 of my time

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!

Neither. It's MediaPortal versus Vista MCE

[charnov]

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.