[mythtv-users] Converting a HD Tivo to myth box

[jedi]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 04:47:19PM -0400, Heath Roberts wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 2:26 PM, jedi <jedi at mishnet.org> wrote:
> 
> >    Tivo boxes have always been pathetically weak boxes with some
> > special acceleration hardware added. They are NOT general purpose
> > machines and not something you would want to try and use as such.
> >
> 
> I don't think anyone asked about replacing a desktop machine or database
> server with a TiVo box.

     If you are planning on installing Linux on it then it will need to
be used as such. As others have mentioned, and speciality hardware that
a Tivo may have will be completely inaccesable (to Linux).

> 
> The other side of this particular coin is that not much energy goes into
> making Myth code efficient, which puts users on a constant upgrade
> treadmill--Myth is sort of the Vista of FOSS, and if it takes fairly

     That is bullshit.

     If your required features don't change, your hardware requirements
won't change either. It doesn't take much hardware to handle the sort
of media that a Tivo can handle.

     It does take some computing muscle to handle the things that a
Tivo won't or can't do. Even then, the computing requirements hardly
constitute "high end". Pretty medicore PC hardware can handle pretty
much anything up to the bluray level HD content.

     If your intent is to replicate what a Tivo can do then you can
use hardware discarded during the last century.

> high-end hardware to run it, the decision-makers seem okay with that.
> 
> That doesn't match up with my own personal wishes--I'd like to be able to
> run the frontend, at least, on inexpensive, low-power, resource-limited
> hardware--but I'm not trying to say it's inherently good or bad, just that
> it is.

     Unless you are interested in using a Hauppauge 1212 to access content 
that no Tivo can touch yet, then you can just use a general purpose 1Ghz
intel based PC with a well matched video card.

> 
> So maybe the TiVo isn't "weak", just engineered.

     A Tivo does remarkably less and isn't as cheap as you imply.