A new version of Myth TV was released recently. I’ve been thinking about setting one of these up for years now. Given the fumfurrah about broadcast flags and TiVo turning off features and all that sorts of stuff, I plan on downloading and keeping a copy of every release for myself from here on out, just in case. One of these days, I will definitely be setting this up if for no other reason that being able to transcode captured TV for my own portable devices and/or easily watching vlogs on my TV.
New MythTV release
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Dude! Get a TiVo! TiVos are the best devices known to man! They work and they are hackable and they run on Linux! Myth TV is so named because it is a myth that it works. There is a guy on TiVo Community Forum who just put two 500 GB drives in his Series II! I’ve got two TiVos. One I’ve boosted to 465 hours and the other one is around 300 or so. Join the TiVorevolution!!!
I highly recommend MythTV, Dave. I’m planning on upgrading my 0.18 box to 0.19 this weekend (all hail Debian, it’s just an apt-get updgrade away [you have to add a separate repository…it’s in the install docs]). It’s actually pretty damn cool. I don’t watch that much TV, but I do use it to transcode some stuff for my iPAQ, and I’m trying to catch back up with BG. Plus, the occasional odd Cartoon Network show doesn’t hurt!
MythTV is a great project, and they’ve come a long way in the past 18 months or so. It’s much, much easier to get up and running now…plus, you get tons of flexibility. For example, I do run my backend box connected to a TV, but you can also watch on any machine on your wired or 802.11g network (802.11b isn’t usually fast enough). No DRM crap…it just works.
I’ve been downloading bittorrented TV for the past three years, and I would like to thank all the Tivo, MS Media Center, TiVo, and ReplayTV users for their generosity. 🙂
Seriously now. In Puerto Rico, where I currently live, USA network channels are not considered “local broadcast TV”. So the cable monopolies don’t have to carry NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliates as part of the basic cable TV package. The network channels are available with the premium cable TV bundles only. The scumbags aren’t getting any more of my money (I’m a cable modem broadband user), so I’m happy to keep downloading my TV.
I get all the benefits of DRM-free PVRs, and since most of the stuff in bittorrent sites comes in high definition, it’s in higher resolution than what the cable monopolies are providing anyhow. And definitely better res than the $2 iTunes crap (which must be a f***ing a joke! Way to go, Apple.)
Oops, repeated Tivo in the first sentence above. I meant, MythTV, MS Media Center, TiVo, and ReplayTV. The bronchitis meds are making me groggy. 🙂
I believe the broadcast flag (overruled by the courts anyway) would have been implemented in the ATSC decoder hardware, hence the anticipated run on pcHDTV’s stock of cards that preceded the flag implementation deadline last year. Just something to keep in mind — software might not get you past it.
Just like you, I was also planning on “someday” building a MythTV box, but never seemed to get around to it. Then one day last year my DVD player bit the dust, and lord knows I can’t live without a DVD player, what with 500 movies on our Netflix queue. Thirty minutes of research later and I had a DVD+HDD recorder on order. It receives EPG data over the air and works well enough for me. It doesn’t have the fancy affinity features that TiVo has (e.g. thumbs-up/down, season pass) but otherwise it’s a HDD time shifter and that is a truly awesome thing to have. VCRs pale. The unit I have is the Pioneer DVR-533H.
I dunno, in this case, I decided that it was easier to just spend $400 and buy the damn thing. To paraphrase JWZ, building one of these things is cheap only if your time is worthless … fun, sure, but don’t we all have lots of fun things to choose from these days?
Guys, I currently have a Time-Warner DVR that does the basics and is plumb cheap. It’s like $4 a month more than just a straight cable box, so just the differential cost is lower than the TiVo service much less that box itself. So if cost was my driver, I got what I need. What I want is flexibility: the ability to transcode captured shows to any format; the ability to burn to DVD in whatever manner I like; to stream to other devices around my house or possible outside my house if I so desire; to subscribe to vlogs and then have them available beside my shows recorded from broadcast; to have the ability to program in future functionality that I may not yet know that I want but will in the future.
Often I am all over the “value of my time” analysis in things like this, but in this case I think it’s a wash because the time it takes me will also be teaching me things I want to learn. I’m not doing this with the goal of replicating a consumer good I could buy, I’m aiming to create something superior to that and to understand more about how to do that myself. My goal at the other end is to have a better system and be a smarter person, so I’m not worried about the opportunity cost of my time.
I know this is an old post, but for the guy that said myth is a myth if it runs, get your hands on mythbuntu.. its a snap to install & I havent had many issues that couldnt be fixed with just as much ease. And another thing, where did the code for Tivo orignate.. hmm… could it be… MYTH…