What is Digg?38 Comments
- TheZorch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I've discovered that LiveCDs are getting popular. Try to configure Windows to run from a CD. This sounds like a good idea and use of Linux will lower the cost significently from XP Media Center Edition.
- linux4ever, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9An important point the linuxdevices story missed is that these systems are very quiet. The product websites states 14dba for the power supply.
- drag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Haha. Funny troll.
Mythtv:
I use it to watch TV on my desktop.
I use it to watch TV on my Laptop over wifi.
I have a seperate backend for doing the actual recording.
You can use it to rip dvds. Rip music. Have it as a video jutebox if you like.
Listen to music. Play xmame (arcade emulation).
etc etc etc.
I terms of features, price, and maturity it kicks the ever living crap out of MCE six ways till sunday. If your a huge news hound or multimedia geek you can have a dozen different sources for video.. Satellite for instance. Or cable, or have it from radio broadcasts. Have a few different types of satellite inputs if you want to. All at the same time with different video capture cards. In other words you can grab tv shows or movies or whatever from a veriaty of sources rather then 'just' cable, or 'just' digital subscriber sattelite.
You can have many multiple backend servers running. You can have many numerious front ends running. The backends are the computers that have the TV capture cards. Your not limited to 2 or 3 or 4 or a dozen video capture cards. OR you can just do the standard setup with one video card and have the back end and the front end on the same machine.
Also you don't need a high end machine like you do with MCE. It's much less CPU intensive. Also you can use a capture card without hardware-based mpeg encoding if you want. (however your limited to more specific types of hardware encoding cards)
If you add the costs of just setting up one machine for a backend/front end it's more then what you'd pay for a TiVO and it would be considurably more difficult to setup. The major downside to Mythtv is that it's not easy to get going sometimes, that restricts it's usefullness to fairly experianced computer people.
Now for TiVO vs MCE is that with MCE it's more difficult to use and setup. It's much more expensive and it has less features.
But it REALY wins against MCE in one major manner. The most significant thing for me, and probably for most people that read digg...
Mythtv HAS NO DRM.
Although I bet you happily re-encoded your record collection into some horrendious and hiddiously sounding DRM-encrusted drm format so you can play that stuff from your Xbox 360's sound card. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Thank god. I was just about to ask "Does anyone know how loud these things are?"
I was going to ask, because I dropped a lot to rebuild my home theater system recently and even with all of the sound dampening I've had built around my environment, the Xbox360 sounds like an airplane taking off. Kind of ruins the experience when a $20,000+ setup suffers with the sound of an Xbox 360 jet plane. Blocking out the outside world's noise is only half the battle. Then you have to get rid of everything that comes from within. Argh.
I put doors on the componants console enclosure, but it can still vaguely be heard. My comcast DVR is the same way, though not as bad. I would imagine this thing - modeled after just a regular PC system - would be even louder than both of those devices. And by that point, I think I would have to modify the comonant storage enclosure to itself have a set of fans in the back so that the XBOX, Comcast DVR (and this thing) don't overheat in a closed-off area.
This has been one of the reasons I was looking forward to the mac mini solution at some point in the future.
Or maybe there are tricks I should be employing that I'm unaware of. I'm not a professional A/V guy. I'm not even a hobbiest.
I also wonder, how certain are these to handle current (and near-future) cable/satelite devices with full output? I mean, I don't want to use it to store my Comcast HD content and find that it's spitting out at low quality. Or that it couldn't even decode the signal at some point. :/ - chair, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/MCE_Remote
It works with lirc so it'll work with any linux program, but MythTV is the best. - slimrabbit, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7don't forget the size. At 3x16x11 this HTPC is actually smaller tham my DVD player.
- md10md, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6MythTV vs. MCE
Price - Free | Not Free
DRM - None | Yup
Commercial Detection + Skip - Yup | Nope
DVD Ripping - Sure | To Bad in GUI
Customizable - Endless | Frozen except for plugins
I choose MythTV over MCE any day reidtheweed - NIL8, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I love that the system is ready for a myth tv install. I love my tivo and all, but i like to control my content more.
- xqb4dpx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6It would be great for linux to start working at a place where Windows hasnt fully established its own monopoly - Media Center PCs.
- drag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ya didn't read the summery did you?
It states right there that it's barebones.
But otherwise.. For a near-silent PC a barebones system is definately worth it.
Sure you can build a decent performing machine between 200-300 dollars if you pay attention to sales and such.. but if you want it to be quiet your going to have to look out for more rarer parts and extra expenses like special slow fans and large heatsinks. It adds up quickly and easily bumps you up a extra 100-200 dollars. - gollo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If you're only running it in one room pay the $9 bucks cause it's a lot less headache all around BUT if you start adding rooms (kids room, living room, bed room #1, etc) THEN MythTv starts making sense because you can setup one brain to do all the recording and pull the shows you want to watch. Also the one really nice feature about MythTv is it's commercial flagging. It will detect where commercials start and end and automatically fast forward through them for you.
The only thing that Tivo (I realize you aren't using the Tivo service but some cable vendors use the Tivo service rebranded) has that MythTv doesn't is the podcast streamer. I'm pretty sure that it's in the works as a plugin though. - ericcc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah, they probably meant the Sempron 3000+. The fully configured is a good deal, but if you wanted to buy the barebones system and buy the extra parts from newegg you could upgrade to the Sempron 3400+ for the same price. Since it's primarily a media center PC I don't know how much value upgrading the CPU would be.
- smiley2billion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1FTFA: " Supported processors -- AMD Socket AM2, compatible with Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64, Sempron"
So.... I thought the AM2's had a 940 pin count and the others used 939, or was I asleep during that class? Can you use a 940 board and still use 939's with it? - DAE51D, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2who makes that case. that's what I wanna know! :)
- joelunch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I run a mythtv box on an old PC and love it. In Australia we only have ONE cable company with any type of PVR so we need to roll our own. Nothing like Tivo down here. It has totally changed the way I watch TV. I actually watch less, and then only the better stuff. The TV doesn't hold any priority in my life anymore as I can always watch it later if I could be bothered. I don't have to drop things to catch a show anymore.
- Brasky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just do what I did. I upgraded my PC so I had some decent hardware lying around (P4 2.0Ghz 512RAM) I bought a $50 htpc case, $50 200GB HD, spent about 4 hours on a lazy saturday installing and configuring Knoppmyth (pretty cake if your dvdrom isnt a pile of *****...) and away I went. Pretty nice to be able to schedule recordings from ANYTHING with an internet connection.
- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For those who don't know, MCE has been OEM only.
- Sumyunguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ummm...@R2D7...while "sans CPU, memory, and hard drive" does been without, you still need to buy them and put them in it before it will work :) So the $300 box you just bought will now become a $5-600 box before it will do anything for you.
- gollo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Misleading prices. From what I can tell the $299 system does NOT include CPU, Memory or HD. They do have a fully configured system for $549 which is ball park where you would be if you were to buy a CPU, Memory and HD with the $299 system. Oh well $549 for a quite system isn't bad and $299 (plus CPU and Memory) for a mythtv frontend box that looks pretty sharp ain't bad either.
- spinchange, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the price point on this alone is justification
- webagogue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Something I've been trying to find out about MythTV - can you access the web interface over the INTERnet and watch/listen to your content? Like, if I have a MythTV machine at my house, ports properly open, etc., can I let my sister listen to my music at her house on her PC?
- kendawg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Thanks. I had just "bought" MCE2005 and a remote, then wondered if I could use MythTV with all of the same functionality. I'll give it a try.
- linux4ever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Take another look at the website. It lists all CPUs as AM2 sockets.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Of course it's quiet. Sans, by the way, means without. As in, it has no cpu or hard drive. Not much is going to be making noise when you turn it on.
- joelunch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You should be able to easily share your music. Remember it is a full Linux PC so you can also run other applications like slimserver to share your itunes play list and listen to your music remotely as I do.
- andocom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Huh? Foxtel offers the "Foxtel IQ" DVR which is dual turner, if that was around a couple years ago I may not have bothered importing a TIVO, which works fine after modding, (http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/).
- kendawg, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5I was with you until you said "yeah well i dont give a *****, becuase tivo is grabage too". Otherwise, +7 diggs.
- nazsco, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2NVIDIA BINARY DRIVERS
yep, in all caps. marked as lame. - rusty0101, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Well based upon the link you posted earlier, there should be no problem with you putting MCE on the box if you so choose.
Or is this considered feeding the troll? - dswissmiss, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I've also recently set up my own home theater system but went with the cablevision dvr instead of building a my own MythTv box. I figured that at 9 bucks a month it would take me about 4-5 years to make up the price difference. Now I know that a MythTv setup has many more features so it's still in the back of my head. What are your experiences?
- Reidtheweed01, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832102357
- kendawg, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1This doesn't have much to do with the story here, but does the MCE remote work well with any linux htpc programs?
- Dantehman17, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1what is home theatre system what do it do?
- 80211mdr, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2"Two versions of the LixSystems HTPC appear to be available: a barebones system, priced at $299; and a "fully configured" system, which includes a 3+GHz AMD Sempron processor, 250GB hard drive, 512MB memory, a TV/radio/video-capture card, and a DVD/CD-RW drive, for $549."
I don't think AMID has a processor that is 3+GHz, much less a sempron. The FX-60 runs at only 2.6GHz if I recall correctly. They probably meant sempron 3000. - adamlazz, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3No doubt about that. The only large variables here are the Performance v.s Cost matchup, and the Quality and Availibility of Customer service (which will probably grow) v.s Cost matchup that people need to ponder while thinking of using this system.
- kendawg, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1no. freakin. way.
- UNL1M1T3D, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3That is true, especially since you aren't actually supposed to be able to buy the Media Center Edition of XP.
- Reidtheweed01, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5100% this is going to be another flaming hunk of ***** product with linux on it. You guys are in denial if you are going to try to say that this is better then MCE. Yeah i know you all hate microsoft, and spend many hours a day trying to come up with a stupid joke so you can get 7+ diggs. But dont try to act like mythtv or those other 3rd party apps are better then MCE.
Now im just waiting on someone to say "well bone head tivo uses linux", yeah well i dont give a *****, becuase tivo is grabage too.
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