[mythtv-users] Commercial PVR offerings - is MythTv still competitive ?

jedi jedi at mishnet.org
Mon Feb 9 23:33:51 UTC 2009


On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 02:00:56PM -0800, David Brodbeck wrote:
> On Mon, February 9, 2009 1:04 pm, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
> > MythTV was never a "value" investment for me.  It has always been a
> > flexibility component.  One that I can migrate from SD to HD with only the
> > addition of a $70 card.  One that I can increase from one tuner to four
> > tuners without changing anything at the interface level or losing any
> > existing data.
> 
> If you overbuilt your system with the idea of eventually using it for
> HDTV, that makes the decision easier.
> 
> It's a little tougher for those of us with older systems that have AGP
> slots.  Upgrading to support HDTV, when it eventually becomes necessary,
> is going to require an entirely new machine.

    It depends on the machine and when. Already you can get a pretty cheap
machine that's HD capable in the $200 range. Adding a new tuner doesn't
necessarily depend on what kind of internal expansion bus your backend has.
In short order, even a h264 HD capable machine will be in the $200 range.

    Plus an old backend/frontend can be put to other uses. An appliance
is pretty much landfill material once you're through with it.

    Now if you like the idea of having a sort of trouble free appliance
then that's another matter.

    Now the idea that you have to make special preparations to make a
PC handle HD is just silly. PCs are inherently "high definition" 
devices and have been since before there were ideas of having HD TV.
My first HDTV even had an RGB port. I just treated it like any other
monitor I've had since my first 486 that ran at 768p.


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