Slashdot Mirror
MythTV Allows Multiple Front-Ends On Wide Range of Platforms
As the DVR becomes a much more pervasive performer in home theater setups, the level of excellence demanded by the general consumer seems to continue to rise. The open source project MythTV has been in this arena for quite a while, and now offers the ability to have multiple front-ends on your MythTV install on a wide range of different platforms. Able to run on Windows XP, Vista, Xbox, and even an Apple iPod, the new flexibility is sure to interest many consumers (and many competitors).
My recommendation? Tivo. Hands down! It doesn't have all the features and flexibility as the other units, but it's fast and responsive - from a usability perspective. And I can even download my shows to my PC.
Windows MCE was pretty nice - but after about a month, my filesystem got corruped, and I lost everything - including the 300 CDs I had ripped (manually) to the unit! The UI was a little slow.
Then came Myth. A royal pain to get running. The features and flexibility were very nice. The worst thing about it however was the music portion of it. (MythMusic). That was horible beyond believe - especialy in-contrast to the Windows MCE, which was very very nice. MythTV's UI was kind of slow and klunky as well. I do not miss it.
Then came the Comcast HD PVR. That was too great - limited functionality and channel guides were a pain. No music, no download capability. We only went through 2 or 3 of these boxes (due to dying) during our month we owned them - when we found out Tivo firmware was available.
The Comcast HD-DVR with Tivo firmware was the worst. We went through about 3 trips to the Comcast office, dead units, 3 or 4 technician house-calls. Lost show, etc. They eventually came out with a version of firmware which at least stablized the box. It's not too bad now - but a bit clunky - not as fast and responsive. The firmware is still kind of screwed-up - gives you the wrong sounds when clicking through things - shows disappear sometimes - a few unit freezes, etc. No music - at least not our - just the crappy Comcast music channels. Oh yea, and whatever you do - don't hit the "on-demand" button - 'cause that'll just ruin your whole evening.
So for the few things we watch in HD, we use the Comcast HD-PVR with Tivo - reluctantly.
For everything else - all the reruns, and bulk of stuff we record - and music - It's all still the Tivo Series-2. It works. It's fast. It's reliable. It's responsive. It does what I want it to when I hit a button. We've never lost a show. We're on our original unit after many many years. It's simple and streightforward. I don't want to do "development" at night - I just want to press a button and watch TV. Tivo does that, and well.
The only realy upside to MythTV was that it was free...but not anymore!
MythTV supports firewire access to cable boxes. MythTV can do both capture and channel changing via firewire. I currently have a MythTV box hooked up to a Motorola DCT-6200, and this allows me to record HD (as well as SD) channels. Having said that, some Cable companies will encrypt "premium" channels making this solution useless for those channels. However, for my needs at least, MythTV+firewire+DCT-6200 works fine. Throw in OTA HD channels (which in my location look significantly better than their cable versions due to compression in the latter) and life is good for my simple needs.