MythTV

This is a good time to express my general satisfaction with MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org), and a big congratulations to the developers and the user community.

[Geeking out for a paragraph]

I'm running version 0.21 on Debian Etch, on an AMD XP3500 with a gig of RAM, a Samsung DVD burner, a 320GB IDE disk and 2 500GB IDE disks. I have a PVR500 dual tuner card and an HDHomeRun, both plugged into a cable feed from RCN. Output is an NVidia 5200 via SVideo to a JVC CRT. Scheduling information is from Schedules Direct. There's an IR keyboard with PS/2 interfaces and a $12 Sony remote pointing at the HDHR. There's a local ethernet hub and an 802.11g USB widget which connects the den to the network upstairs.

(Translation for non-geeks: that's a fairly cheap computer setup, the equivalent of a $400 el-cheapo in terms of actual brainpower and RAM, plus $200 in extra disks, a $30 keyboard, and $250 towards four specialized television tuners. This is a game where you can start off reasonably cheaply and eventually spend as much as you can afford...)

For normal operation, only the remote control is used. We have a TiVo and an HD TiVo; the difficulty (ease) of using any of the three DVRs is very similar.

I've installed a second frontend on an old desktop upstairs; it can show standard definition programs without many issues. I don't use that much. When I upgrade it, and run a physical wire down to the Myth box, that might change.

I have been running this for 13 months, recording over 2200 episodes of over 120 shows. I can record standard def and high def, and play them back smoothly. Thanks to MythWeb, I can change the scheduling while I'm at work. Transcoding takes a while, but I generally only do that for big programs that we're not going to watch for a while - Eliz wants to watch the ISU figure-skating championships, and 3 hours of 720P is quite a chunk. The picture quality is wonderful, though.

I love automated commercial flagging. There are a few cases where it doesn't work -- generally near the end of a program -- and the logo detector is fooled by Bravo and Food Network programs that start the bug on the inhouse ads just prior to the program resume. But automatically skipping all the commercials is amazingly good.

The only time we watch live TV is for breaking news, which doesn't happen much. Even then, we're more likely to pull up Internet news sources.

When the kids insist on finishing a program when I want them to go to bed soon, I change to 1.3x time compression. Yes, I'm evil; but it doesn't sound like chipmunks.

I still get recording failures on the PVR500, generally requiring a reboot to fix. But RCN provides me with a lot of clear QAM channels these days, so I've been moving recordings over to the HDHR. That device is extremely reliable.

When I accumulate enough money, and prices drop a bit more, I'll get a nice LCD HDTV to watch all this on. I'll probably need more disk storage soon, too.

If you're not a Linux person, don't feel bad. The port to Windows is coming along, too.

Thanks, MythTV people!

MythTV

This is a good time to express my general satisfaction with MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org), and a big congratulations to the developers and the user community.

[Geeking out for a paragraph]

I'm running version 0.21 on Debian Etch, on an AMD XP3500 with a gig of RAM, a Samsung DVD burner, a 320GB IDE disk and 2 500GB IDE disks. I have a PVR500 dual tuner card and an HDHomeRun, both plugged into a cable feed from RCN. Output is an NVidia 5200 via SVideo to a JVC CRT. Scheduling information is from Schedules Direct. There's an IR keyboard with PS/2 interfaces and a $12 Sony remote pointing at the HDHR. There's a local ethernet hub and an 802.11g USB widget which connects the den to the network upstairs.

(Translation for non-geeks: that's a fairly cheap computer setup, the equivalent of a $400 el-cheapo in terms of actual brainpower and RAM, plus $200 in extra disks, a $30 keyboard, and $250 towards four specialized television tuners. This is a game where you can start off reasonably cheaply and eventually spend as much as you can afford...)

For normal operation, only the remote control is used. We have a TiVo and an HD TiVo; the difficulty (ease) of using any of the three DVRs is very similar.

I've installed a second frontend on an old desktop upstairs; it can show standard definition programs without many issues. I don't use that much. When I upgrade it, and run a physical wire down to the Myth box, that might change.

I have been running this for 13 months, recording over 2200 episodes of over 120 shows. I can record standard def and high def, and play them back smoothly. Thanks to MythWeb, I can change the scheduling while I'm at work. Transcoding takes a while, but I generally only do that for big programs that we're not going to watch for a while - Eliz wants to watch the ISU figure-skating championships, and 3 hours of 720P is quite a chunk. The picture quality is wonderful, though.

I love automated commercial flagging. There are a few cases where it doesn't work -- generally near the end of a program -- and the logo detector is fooled by Bravo and Food Network programs that start the bug on the inhouse ads just prior to the program resume. But automatically skipping all the commercials is amazingly good.

The only time we watch live TV is for breaking news, which doesn't happen much. Even then, we're more likely to pull up Internet news sources.

When the kids insist on finishing a program when I want them to go to bed soon, I change to 1.3x time compression. Yes, I'm evil; but it doesn't sound like chipmunks.

I still get recording failures on the PVR500, generally requiring a reboot to fix. But RCN provides me with a lot of clear QAM channels these days, so I've been moving recordings over to the HDHR. That device is extremely reliable.

When I accumulate enough money, and prices drop a bit more, I'll get a nice LCD HDTV to watch all this on. I'll probably need more disk storage soon, too.

If you're not a Linux person, don't feel bad. The port to Windows is coming along, too.

Thanks, MythTV people!