But you did imply it was an easier alternative with: "...to spend their weekend building a box from scratch...", but its not easier - not to get a full featured PVR.
Except it is easier. Vastly easier.
For starters, the system is already built.
Secondly, the OS is already installed.
Thirdly, installing the PVR app is a simple "drag the application which came with the tuner into the applications folder" procedure.
Finally, the only configuration to be done is to auto-tune your local stations, set up a TitanTV log-in, and configure the remote. It honestly takes less time to set up than you would spend deciding on your speaker placement.
The article we're discussing features a black case (not a particularly attractive one mind you). My mini-itx (which predates the mac mini) is in a black box too. The mini is closer in color to the beige-box you mention.
"Beige box" is a common expression referring to commodity PC systems, particularilly home-brew ones. Almost none of them are actually beige in color anymore. White and black seem to be the most popular choices.
(Although most of my Linux and/or Windows boxes were beige, because I would always prefer to re-use old PC cases when building new systems, even if that meant getting out the tin-snips and cutting new holes for USB ports and what-not. I just can't bring myself to spend money on a simple metal box when I can avoid it.)
I used to. Then I got a sweetheart deal on a dual-G5 tower, which handles HDTV much better than the G4 mini did, and put the mini into a music studio rackmount to spend the rest of its days as an audio signal processor.
All those things you mention (are great apps, but) don't integrate into a PVR type setup (with large, high contrast text, full screen, remote operation, etc etc) without alot (a weekend's worth?) of effort.
Almost zero effort. The Keyspan remote control comes with pre-built software commans, and if freakishly easy to customize.
I push a button on my remote. iTunes launches. The text can be larger and bolder, but since my screen is grotesquely huge, I use the default font.
I select the song, album, or playlist I want and hit play.
I hit another button if I want the keen visual effects to fill the screen instead while the music is playing.
I hit a button to turn off the visuals.
I select an h.264 video I downloaded from the Internet and archived on my iTunes playlist.
I hit play, and watch the video in full-screen mode, just like any other video source.
I hit a button to quit, I'm back at the desktop.
I hit a button and EyeTV launches.
My remote works just like a TV/PVR remote control.
I hit a button to quit, I'm back at the desktop.
I hit a button and DVD Player luanches.
I use the remote to select a DVD image from the "Open" dialoge box.
I hit play. Now I'm watching a DVD.
You see what I'm saying here? All of this stuff is ALREADY "integrated" at the OS level. No need for a fancy app.
Apple's had a media launcher on the market for a while now, and there are at least three open-source projects floating around out there for something similar. I'm not intereted in any of them, because I can already do it all without a special application, beyond the driver for the remote control.
3.5) Stay up all night browsing support forums, because the cheap Taiwanese IDE bridge on the "obnoxious beige box" you had hanging around is not on the Linux Compatibility List and nobody seems to have heard of it except for two people asking "how do I get this to work?" on the web archives of some old newsgroup list, neither of whom ever got an answer. Then try out several drivers to "similar" bridge circuits to see if you can find one that mostly works, before giving up and trying it on your laptop instead, just to make sure you can get everything else working before running out and buying a new system the next morning, only to find that your laptop runs everything fine, but with no sound. Then spend the half-wakeful following morning pondering whether you should go with a new PC made of carefully-selected Linux-compatable parts, or just go with a Windows or Mac solution.
4) Set up your universal remote
Done.
There. Fixed it for you.
(Mostly kidding... Linux hardware support is much better than it used to be. Still, I always look parts up before attempting to use Linux with them, because I've had far too many Linux install experiences along the lines of: "Generic 2-Button mouse!? What do you mean generic 2-button mouse!? It's a three-button-plus-scroll-wheel mouse from a top-5 name-brand manufacturer!" Ahh... good times, good times.)
1) Buy a PC 2) Buy a tuner card (Hauppauge preferred) 3) Install Knoppmyth Done!
You missed two steps:
0.5) Check the Linux compatability list before buying your PC to make sure really obscure stuff like the SOUND CARD is actually supported. I speak with the voice of bitter experience here. Unelss you think it's fun to write your own custom drivers, make sure every last bit of hardware you buy is fully tested and known to work with the build of Linux you will be using.
also:
2.5) Install the tuner card in the PC. It works a lot better that way.;)
For starters, it's easier to buy DVD-Rs then upgrade a hdd and secondly, what you say is false. Blank DVD's are about 20c each, roughly 5c/GB. Upgrading a Mac Mini (we are still talking about these right?) from the standard 60GB to 120GB will cost you $175. That works out at 35c/GB.
Please show me where I can get DL DVD's for 20c each. (Single-layer DVD's won't cut it, as they can't store enough HD video for many shows.)
I've got a stack of EXTERNAL hard drives in my basement connected by a long Firewire chain, all of which cost far, far less than equivalent storage on DL-DVD, while being far more convenient.
Man I love the smell of unsubstantiated allegations in the morning!
Man, I hate the smell of poor reading comprehension skills. You suggested that those who crave the ease-of-use of a mini should buy a PVR. I rightly pointed out that a mini has many features which a PCR lacks, and you read that to imply that MythTV lacks those features, which I never said.
You post a "mac mini is better" comment to...
I must have missed the line where I ever said "mac mini is better". I simply pointed out that it was an alternative for those who would rather not build their own MythTV box, but want similar features.
I even went so far as to point out in the first fucking line that the Mac solution was more expensive, and therefore obviously not for everybody, but that still wasn't enough to quell your knee-jerk defense of your PRECIOUS Open Source solution againt the eeeeeevil Mac cheerleader.
You tell me, who's the fanboy here? Take a closer look at your behavior and answer again.
I gotta love how a whole string of on-topic metaphors are being modded down as "off topic" by one dufus with mod points who doesn't seem to be able to folow the analogy.
I sort-of agree with the AC who replied to you, except I think he's selling Linux short in its capacity to be a best-in-class enterprise solution in some settings.
You still have to dick around with the mac to get everything working, so why not take the superior and open Linux sulotion.
I've owned enough Linux boxen to know that that's just about the most stupid fucking argument you could ever make in favor of Linux over OS X.
I mean, seriously stupid. Every one of us on this forum is now a little dumber for having read it.
Linux is awesome. It brought UNIX to the masses at a time when choices for the home user or BOFH-in-training were extremely limited. It allows you to turn useless old Windows PC's into solid and reliable enterprise servers. It's a fantastic learning tool. There are a million great things you can say about it.
MythTV, for that matter, is a really neat media app.
But to imply that you will need to "dick around" with a homebrew Linux box less than a Mac... That's just too retarded to even take seriously.
2) MythTV gives you Mame, VOIP, Weather, Web, Gallery & music player all-in-one. Mac Mini solution does not.
Sorry for the double-post, but this point is particularilly vexing.
iTunes is a kick-ass music player (and very remote-scriptable).
Safari is a nice browser, but plenty of 'zilla flavored options are available and free as well.
5-day forcasting is a dashboard widget which comes with the OS by default.
By "Gallery" I take it you mean a way to view pitcures. Gosh, if only there was a way to do that! *rolls eyes*
On top of that, the mac solution allows me to play World of Warcraft on my massive projection screen, which might not interest you, but I find it to be pretty neat.
And before you start going on about "all-in-oneness", I don't WANT a glorified launch-bar application for selecting what media I want to enjoy. I already have software for launching media playback software, it's called Mac OS X Tiger. One button press from the finder can get me to either music, DVD playback (either with physical disks or HD archives), other video playback, or whatever else I want. It works very slick.
And again, I'm not saying that a Mac mini, for all people and all tastes, is a better alternative for a media system than a MythTV box. I'm just saying that its an available option which some people might find more attractive than building their own beige-box mini-ITX penguin-power machine.
1. Why would I ever want to put a TV show on to a DVD? Hard drives cost less per GB than blank DL-DVDs do.
2. You can do all of that on a mini, either with free software or stuff that comes with the OS, but again, why would I want "weather" on my TV box, especially when THREE of the HD channels in my broadcast market are nothing but weather radar?
3. There's a lot of nice features the mini has which every PVR on the market lacks, including several you claimed, falsely, to be exlcusive to a MythTV solution.
You have 2 alternatives for avoiding media noise on a Mac mini (or a G5 tower, which also makes a racket when spinning up disks), and neither is perfect:
1. Archive all DVD's on hard drives in another room. (That's what I do, not just to avoid the noise... Having my media library archived like this is pretty sweet in general.) On OS X, Mac the Ripper is probably the best tool. (Make sure to get a hold of the version 3 beta to get around newer DVD copy protection schemes.)
2. Plug a big external DVD drive, like the one from LaCie into the firewire port. Yeah, it's an extra box, but the mini + the DVD case still add up to less space than a typical component system DVD player.
MythTV is very impressive, but not everybody wants to spend their weekend building a box from scratch and installing an OS on it.
Here's a (slightly more expensive) alternative for non-geeks:
1. Buy a Mac Mini
2. Plug a USB2 or Firewire tuner and the Keyspan USB remote sensor into it.
3. Install EyeTV software & Keyspan remote software (both included with the hardware.)
4. Set up your universal remote (your TV and/or receiver remote might be a programmable one. Otherwise there are plenty out there to choose from for about twenty bucks) to control both the TV tuner and all your Mac media apps.
It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers.
Great. At last! 100 episodes of a farm boy fixing vaporators, shopping for power converters, and shooting at womp rats for cheap thrills.
And you just know that every last goddamn character that had anything to do with the ultimate destiny of the Empire will pass through Luke's parcel of desert before the series run is over. I've got ten bucks that says we see Fett before season 1 is over.
He had a problem, and people tried very hard to help. He refused to try anything anyone suggested and became very abusive.
I dunno. I just read that whole thread as a disinterested third party.
He flamed the OS for not being as easy as advertised, and people responded by telling him to "calm down" while flaming him for being an idiot. The only personal attacks I saw in the thread were directed at him, not by him.
That said, he was being a bit of an idiot. He installed on what now appears to have been bad hardware, got a hard-to-troubleshoot error and reacted by going to a forum crowded with fanboys of the OS in question and immediately blamed everything on the OS and its devs. That's not really the best way to try to get help with anything, is it?
He didn't really say anything critical of the people talking to him until they started treating him like a child, in spite of the fact that his frustration was somewhat understandable. Those who know what they are doing with Linux installs are willing to put up with a lot more setbacks than a total newbie, and while a few people in that thread seemed to understand that (the ones who are still trying to help him) a few others simply reacted with venom, which resulted in a thread filled with as much flame-war as troubleshooting. (Which I suppose is pretty much par for course.)
So... idiotic, sure. Abusive? No.
Re:Shouldn't the article title be more like...
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Futurama Returns
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Fair enough. I found them laugh-out-loud funny, though I may be no more quick-witted than the average mouth-breather.
Don't run yourself down like that.
You laugh at a show that's not funny, that doesn't make you an idiot. Just easily amused. Nothing wrong with that.
Heck, some people don't understand why I think Azumanga Daioh is so goddamned funny, but I'm not about to apologize to them. You shouldn't either.
Re:Shouldn't the article title be more like...
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Futurama Returns
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· Score: 1
Gosh, sorry for expressing an opinion. Here I was thinking it was a public forum. How foolish of me. I'll check with you before posting from now on, shall I?
Re:Shouldn't the article title be more like...
on
Futurama Returns
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· Score: 1
You know what would be really great? If these 26 new episodes were funny.
Because the episodes they made before were not funny, and I think making funny shows would be a great way to improve the series.
It's remarkable how much longer these guys have still been alive even after they already completed their originally planned goals. Here's one thing that NASA did right.
What are you talking about? Their projections were WRONG by an order of magnitude. They should all be fired for failing to predict the life-span of these rovers accurately.
It looks like I replied to the wrong AC. The first one was the one who brought up "FOX News" for reasons I can't really fathom, and is the idiot of the conversation.
Slashdot Mirror
But you did imply it was an easier alternative with: "...to spend their weekend building a box from scratch...", but its not easier - not to get a full featured PVR.
Except it is easier. Vastly easier.
For starters, the system is already built.
Secondly, the OS is already installed.
Thirdly, installing the PVR app is a simple "drag the application which came with the tuner into the applications folder" procedure.
Finally, the only configuration to be done is to auto-tune your local stations, set up a TitanTV log-in, and configure the remote. It honestly takes less time to set up than you would spend deciding on your speaker placement.
My comprehension? I read that to mean that I claimed (falsely) some features were exclusive to MythTV.
You did. You said the mini solution left out the ability to get stuff like weather, web browsing, etc. as an integrated solution.
Those things are integrated on the Mac, just at the OS level rather than in an application shell.
The article we're discussing features a black case (not a particularly attractive one mind you). My mini-itx (which predates the mac mini) is in a black box too. The mini is closer in color to the beige-box you mention.
"Beige box" is a common expression referring to commodity PC systems, particularilly home-brew ones. Almost none of them are actually beige in color anymore. White and black seem to be the most popular choices.
(Although most of my Linux and/or Windows boxes were beige, because I would always prefer to re-use old PC cases when building new systems, even if that meant getting out the tin-snips and cutting new holes for USB ports and what-not. I just can't bring myself to spend money on a simple metal box when I can avoid it.)
Do yo ever use your mini as a PVR?
I used to. Then I got a sweetheart deal on a dual-G5 tower, which handles HDTV much better than the G4 mini did, and put the mini into a music studio rackmount to spend the rest of its days as an audio signal processor.
All those things you mention (are great apps, but) don't integrate into a PVR type setup (with large, high contrast text, full screen, remote operation, etc etc) without alot (a weekend's worth?) of effort.
Almost zero effort. The Keyspan remote control comes with pre-built software commans, and if freakishly easy to customize.
I push a button on my remote. iTunes launches. The text can be larger and bolder, but since my screen is grotesquely huge, I use the default font.
I select the song, album, or playlist I want and hit play.
I hit another button if I want the keen visual effects to fill the screen instead while the music is playing.
I hit a button to turn off the visuals.
I select an h.264 video I downloaded from the Internet and archived on my iTunes playlist.
I hit play, and watch the video in full-screen mode, just like any other video source.
I hit a button to quit, I'm back at the desktop.
I hit a button and EyeTV launches.
My remote works just like a TV/PVR remote control.
I hit a button to quit, I'm back at the desktop.
I hit a button and DVD Player luanches.
I use the remote to select a DVD image from the "Open" dialoge box.
I hit play. Now I'm watching a DVD.
You see what I'm saying here? All of this stuff is ALREADY "integrated" at the OS level. No need for a fancy app.
Apple's had a media launcher on the market for a while now, and there are at least three open-source projects floating around out there for something similar. I'm not intereted in any of them, because I can already do it all without a special application, beyond the driver for the remote control.
Alternate solution:
.iso (http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/007001102 5.html)
1) Pick any formfactor x86 PC you want, from small to "I have this obnoxious beige box hanging around";
2) Install a tuner -- USB, firewire or PCI
3) KnoppMyth (http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html)
3a) $4.99 from CheapBytes if you don't want to download and burn an
3.5) Stay up all night browsing support forums, because the cheap Taiwanese IDE bridge on the "obnoxious beige box" you had hanging around is not on the Linux Compatibility List and nobody seems to have heard of it except for two people asking "how do I get this to work?" on the web archives of some old newsgroup list, neither of whom ever got an answer. Then try out several drivers to "similar" bridge circuits to see if you can find one that mostly works, before giving up and trying it on your laptop instead, just to make sure you can get everything else working before running out and buying a new system the next morning, only to find that your laptop runs everything fine, but with no sound. Then spend the half-wakeful following morning pondering whether you should go with a new PC made of carefully-selected Linux-compatable parts, or just go with a Windows or Mac solution.
4) Set up your universal remote
Done.
There. Fixed it for you.
(Mostly kidding... Linux hardware support is much better than it used to be. Still, I always look parts up before attempting to use Linux with them, because I've had far too many Linux install experiences along the lines of: "Generic 2-Button mouse!? What do you mean generic 2-button mouse!? It's a three-button-plus-scroll-wheel mouse from a top-5 name-brand manufacturer!" Ahh... good times, good times.)
Whose lifetime is that subscription for? Yours, the TiVo's or TiVo, Inc's?
:)
Whatever ends first.
1) Buy a PC 2) Buy a tuner card (Hauppauge preferred) 3) Install Knoppmyth Done!
;)
You missed two steps:
0.5) Check the Linux compatability list before buying your PC to make sure really obscure stuff like the SOUND CARD is actually supported. I speak with the voice of bitter experience here. Unelss you think it's fun to write your own custom drivers, make sure every last bit of hardware you buy is fully tested and known to work with the build of Linux you will be using.
also:
2.5) Install the tuner card in the PC. It works a lot better that way.
For starters, it's easier to buy DVD-Rs then upgrade a hdd and secondly, what you say is false. Blank DVD's are about 20c each, roughly 5c/GB. Upgrading a Mac Mini (we are still talking about these right?) from the standard 60GB to 120GB will cost you $175. That works out at 35c/GB.
Please show me where I can get DL DVD's for 20c each. (Single-layer DVD's won't cut it, as they can't store enough HD video for many shows.)
I've got a stack of EXTERNAL hard drives in my basement connected by a long Firewire chain, all of which cost far, far less than equivalent storage on DL-DVD, while being far more convenient.
Man I love the smell of unsubstantiated allegations in the morning!
Man, I hate the smell of poor reading comprehension skills. You suggested that those who crave the ease-of-use of a mini should buy a PVR. I rightly pointed out that a mini has many features which a PCR lacks, and you read that to imply that MythTV lacks those features, which I never said.
You post a "mac mini is better" comment to...
I must have missed the line where I ever said "mac mini is better". I simply pointed out that it was an alternative for those who would rather not build their own MythTV box, but want similar features.
I even went so far as to point out in the first fucking line that the Mac solution was more expensive, and therefore obviously not for everybody, but that still wasn't enough to quell your knee-jerk defense of your PRECIOUS Open Source solution againt the eeeeeevil Mac cheerleader.
You tell me, who's the fanboy here? Take a closer look at your behavior and answer again.
I gotta love how a whole string of on-topic metaphors are being modded down as "off topic" by one dufus with mod points who doesn't seem to be able to folow the analogy.
I sort-of agree with the AC who replied to you, except I think he's selling Linux short in its capacity to be a best-in-class enterprise solution in some settings.
You still have to dick around with the mac to get everything working, so why not take the superior and open Linux sulotion.
I've owned enough Linux boxen to know that that's just about the most stupid fucking argument you could ever make in favor of Linux over OS X.
I mean, seriously stupid. Every one of us on this forum is now a little dumber for having read it.
Linux is awesome. It brought UNIX to the masses at a time when choices for the home user or BOFH-in-training were extremely limited. It allows you to turn useless old Windows PC's into solid and reliable enterprise servers. It's a fantastic learning tool. There are a million great things you can say about it.
MythTV, for that matter, is a really neat media app.
But to imply that you will need to "dick around" with a homebrew Linux box less than a Mac... That's just too retarded to even take seriously.
2) MythTV gives you Mame, VOIP, Weather, Web, Gallery & music player all-in-one. Mac Mini solution does not.
Sorry for the double-post, but this point is particularilly vexing.
iTunes is a kick-ass music player (and very remote-scriptable).
Safari is a nice browser, but plenty of 'zilla flavored options are available and free as well.
5-day forcasting is a dashboard widget which comes with the OS by default.
By "Gallery" I take it you mean a way to view pitcures. Gosh, if only there was a way to do that! *rolls eyes*
On top of that, the mac solution allows me to play World of Warcraft on my massive projection screen, which might not interest you, but I find it to be pretty neat.
And before you start going on about "all-in-oneness", I don't WANT a glorified launch-bar application for selecting what media I want to enjoy. I already have software for launching media playback software, it's called Mac OS X Tiger. One button press from the finder can get me to either music, DVD playback (either with physical disks or HD archives), other video playback, or whatever else I want. It works very slick.
And again, I'm not saying that a Mac mini, for all people and all tastes, is a better alternative for a media system than a MythTV box. I'm just saying that its an available option which some people might find more attractive than building their own beige-box mini-ITX penguin-power machine.
It takes different strokes to move the world, yo.
1. Why would I ever want to put a TV show on to a DVD? Hard drives cost less per GB than blank DL-DVDs do.
2. You can do all of that on a mini, either with free software or stuff that comes with the OS, but again, why would I want "weather" on my TV box, especially when THREE of the HD channels in my broadcast market are nothing but weather radar?
3. There's a lot of nice features the mini has which every PVR on the market lacks, including several you claimed, falsely, to be exlcusive to a MythTV solution.
But thanks for trolling.
You have 2 alternatives for avoiding media noise on a Mac mini (or a G5 tower, which also makes a racket when spinning up disks), and neither is perfect:
1. Archive all DVD's on hard drives in another room. (That's what I do, not just to avoid the noise... Having my media library archived like this is pretty sweet in general.) On OS X, Mac the Ripper is probably the best tool. (Make sure to get a hold of the version 3 beta to get around newer DVD copy protection schemes.)
2. Plug a big external DVD drive, like the one from LaCie into the firewire port. Yeah, it's an extra box, but the mini + the DVD case still add up to less space than a typical component system DVD player.
A good musician doesn't blame the instrument 8-)
A good musician also buys the best one that he or she can afford (or has one provided, in the case of world-class string instruments.)
MythTV is very impressive, but not everybody wants to spend their weekend building a box from scratch and installing an OS on it.
Here's a (slightly more expensive) alternative for non-geeks:
1. Buy a Mac Mini
2. Plug a USB2 or Firewire tuner and the Keyspan USB remote sensor into it.
3. Install EyeTV software & Keyspan remote software (both included with the hardware.)
4. Set up your universal remote (your TV and/or receiver remote might be a programmable one. Otherwise there are plenty out there to choose from for about twenty bucks) to control both the TV tuner and all your Mac media apps.
Done.
I'm getting so tired of this argument and I'm not sure why it's been modded funny.
Once again, I'm asked to explain "this Earth thing called laughter." A starship captain's work is never done.
Heh.
It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers.
Great. At last! 100 episodes of a farm boy fixing vaporators, shopping for power converters, and shooting at womp rats for cheap thrills.
And you just know that every last goddamn character that had anything to do with the ultimate destiny of the Empire will pass through Luke's parcel of desert before the series run is over. I've got ten bucks that says we see Fett before season 1 is over.
He had a problem, and people tried very hard to help. He refused to try anything anyone suggested and became very abusive.
I dunno. I just read that whole thread as a disinterested third party.
He flamed the OS for not being as easy as advertised, and people responded by telling him to "calm down" while flaming him for being an idiot. The only personal attacks I saw in the thread were directed at him, not by him.
That said, he was being a bit of an idiot. He installed on what now appears to have been bad hardware, got a hard-to-troubleshoot error and reacted by going to a forum crowded with fanboys of the OS in question and immediately blamed everything on the OS and its devs. That's not really the best way to try to get help with anything, is it?
He didn't really say anything critical of the people talking to him until they started treating him like a child, in spite of the fact that his frustration was somewhat understandable. Those who know what they are doing with Linux installs are willing to put up with a lot more setbacks than a total newbie, and while a few people in that thread seemed to understand that (the ones who are still trying to help him) a few others simply reacted with venom, which resulted in a thread filled with as much flame-war as troubleshooting. (Which I suppose is pretty much par for course.)
So... idiotic, sure. Abusive? No.
Fair enough. I found them laugh-out-loud funny, though I may be no more quick-witted than the average mouth-breather.
Don't run yourself down like that.
You laugh at a show that's not funny, that doesn't make you an idiot. Just easily amused. Nothing wrong with that.
Heck, some people don't understand why I think Azumanga Daioh is so goddamned funny, but I'm not about to apologize to them. You shouldn't either.
Gosh, sorry for expressing an opinion. Here I was thinking it was a public forum. How foolish of me. I'll check with you before posting from now on, shall I?
You know what would be really great? If these 26 new episodes were funny.
Because the episodes they made before were not funny, and I think making funny shows would be a great way to improve the series.
Now usually, when somebody tried to riff on somebody else's joke on Slashdot, it's not even a little bit funny.
:)
But that was hilarious. Hats off.
It's remarkable how much longer these guys have still been alive even after they already completed their originally planned goals. Here's one thing that NASA did right.
What are you talking about? Their projections were WRONG by an order of magnitude. They should all be fired for failing to predict the life-span of these rovers accurately.
"colours"!?
I don't think I'm going to look to you for opinions on American IP laws, thanks anyway.
It looks like I replied to the wrong AC. The first one was the one who brought up "FOX News" for reasons I can't really fathom, and is the idiot of the conversation.