The Power of Open Source Software Compells Thee

[dsrtao]

So, I've had two RCN installers in my house recently. Both of them were all-around installers, with lots of experience with pulling cables, hanging boxes on the side of the house, installing VOIP boxes, cable modems, TV set-top boxes including HD and DVR systems.

They were both seriously impressed by my MythTV system. What made them happy?

- High quality picture display. "We never get a picture that crisp on an SD channel" said one guy. (Has anyone ever seen a female cable installer? The gender ratio looks pretty skewed to me.)

- High quality fast-forward. "That's much sharper than on our DVRs, and faster, too."

- Expandability. "You can just add another hard disk when you're running out of space? Great!"

- User interface speed. "Everything's so quick".

- Commercial skip. "That's automatic? And it figures out where the commercials are by itself? No cable company would ever sell something like that! It's great!".

- Video cut-editing and the ability to burn to DVD.

Comments

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

I have never heard of MythTV

[dsrtao]

From my description, what must it be?

http://www.mythtv.org

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

(reads webpage) It seems to be written in Swahili. Is this real?

I should clairfy - I'm a decade out of touch with tech speak so I have no idea what I'm reading.

[dsrtao]

The pretty pictures are here...

http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythFeatures

Does that help?

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw those but those could easily be mock ups for convincing non-tech people like myself that it's real.

Please put me out of my misery and tell me? : )

[dsrtao]

Yup, it's real. MythTV is software that runs on Linux, on normal PCs, that allows you to record and play back TV programs. You can buy hardware to pull TV from:
- over-the-air broadcasts
- the analog output of cable boxes
- the digital output of some cable boxes
- the analog output of satellite boxes
- the Internet
- DVDs, VCRs, etc.

and you can display this on your monitor, or on a regular TV, or on an HDTV. And you can control most of it (certainly all the daily things) through a normal remote control.

Currently the software is version 0.21, which means that you have to be pretty technical to install it and get useful things done. When it gets to 1.0, it's expected that pretty much anyone who can read and follow directions will be able to do everything with it.

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

Well that's just fantastic then! What's the overall cost? I assume one needs to have some prior service? (please don't point me to a link - it's hurty)

[dsrtao]

You need a reasonably modern PC, but the ones they sell for $500 these days count.

You need whatever tuner/recording hardware you need for you particular situation -- an over-the-air HD tuner can cost $60 or so. The most exotic tuner in semi-common use is the Hauppauge HD-PVR, which can record HD from satellite or cable boxes with no digital output. That runs $250. I don't have one.

A remote control costs about $30, including a USB interface for your computer.

After that, it's whatever you want to add, at the time you want to add it.