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On 12/31/2009 04:33 PM, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:3a83b0a90912311633l4c7a4e21hb1a60ca338908695@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Bob Cunningham <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:FlyMyPG@gmail.com">FlyMyPG@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On 12/31/2009 11:51 AM, Charles Wright wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 1:18 PM, David Engel<<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:david@istwok.net" target="_blank">david@istwok.net</a>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
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On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 09:45:48AM -0800, Paul Bender wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 12/31/2009 9:08 AM, David Engel wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Sidenote: that TiVo I started with is now 9.5 years old and still<br>
going strong in daily use by my Mom.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
I am surprised that it has continued for so long. When one of the<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
So am I! To be completely transparent, it *is* on it's third (maybe<br>
even fourth) add-on drive.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
My Tivo just died after 8 years of service this week. I'm glad that I<br>
got Mythtv running with a tuner just about 1 month ago (I've been<br>
using Mythvideo for a year now, but did not have a tuner).<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
Bah! I'm still running an original ReplayTV (model RTV-2020,
pre-Tivo), still with the original drive. I bought it 10 years ago,
back when both it and Amazon were still new (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.amazon.com/RTV2020-ReplayTV-Recorder-Lifetime-Subscription/dp/B00002ST80"
target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/RTV2020-ReplayTV-Recorder-Lifetime-Subscription/dp/B00002ST80</a>).<br>
<br>
I've been hacking at MythTV for over a year (to replace the ReplayTV
and to get HD), and I have yet to see MythTV perform as simply and as
reliably as my ancient ReplayTV. MythTV has, for me, been a time sink
with little reward, so much so that I'm seriously considering going
with Windows MCE (the horror). While MythTV has no single big thing
wrong with it, it does have a vast number of annoyances, and the work
it takes to address each of them is making MythTV close to an Epic Fail
for me.<br>
<br>
Then again, perhaps I'm spoiled rotten by having a DVR that "Just
Works". Are my standards too high?<br>
<br>
I haven't quite given up yet: I'm still reading this list! And
mythbackend is still running on my F12 workstation, though I have to
access it through MythWeb (streaming!) because of unresolved
mythfrontend issues. But now mythbackend doesn't record SD sound
(probably a PulseAudio thing). Sigh.<br>
<br>
My 10 year old ReplayTV box just sits there, faithfully recording and
playing SD without any problem, silently laughing at me</blockquote>
<div><br>
Sometimes older is better in many ways. My CentOS 5 systems never have
these kind of issues because the codebase doesn't change monthly like
the Fedora systems. It can be a little more challenging using the
latest versions of some things like QT 4.5, but it hasn't been hard
tracking down repositories or people that have done the work to make
RPMs for them. Up until very recently, my two systems were running an
MX440 and FX5200 graphics card using XvMC and running HD just fine...</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Since I don't yet have a separate HTPC, I'm doing all my MythTV testing
on dual Xeon workstation, which I keep current because I run my
consulting business on it. I do all the MythTV stuff as the myth user,
in the hope that when the day comes, I will be able to more easily
migrate that user to a separate HTPC box.<br>
<br>
The reason I'm with Fedora is that it is the easiest way I've found to
stay "just behind" the bleeding edge. It's a policy thing, not a
religious preference. Plus, Fedora is the development and deployment
platform of choice for many of my clients.<br>
<br>
I suppose all I really want is a hardware recipe and a distro selection
that will give me the best "bang for the buck" FE/BE system with
"brainless setup" and "great performance" for running MythTV. Then I
could remove MythTV from my workstation and actually start using it in
my living room!<br>
<br>
- What is the best distro for running 0.22?<br>
- Should I use one of the pre-configured MythTV+distro packages?<br>
(Do any of them provide 0.22?)<br>
- Which video card? (Is VDPAU the best way to go?)<br>
- Which HD and SD tuners? (I presently have an HVR-950Q. I previously
went through hell with a pair of HD-5000 cards, which I returned.)<br>
- Can I really expect to build a fanless HTPC that has great MythTV
performance?<br>
- Is a ready-to-buy HTPC available with MythTV preloaded and ready to
go?<br>
<br>
My experience indicates MythTV is simply way too fragile and complex
(too big a time sink) to be treated as "just another Linux app" in a
dynamic environment, meaning I should either consider other DVR
software, or try to get a pre-configured box from a company that uses
MythTV experts.<br>
<br>
I want to replace my ReplayTV box with a very quiet HTPC that does as
much of the following as possible:<br>
- HD/SD DVR (Tivo? WinMCE? MythTV?)<br>
- DVD/CD player<br>
- Rip from DVDs, CDs and VCR (I still have a few old tapes...)<br>
- Future support for Blu-Ray 3D disks and rips (PS3?)<br>
- Access my local digital media (pics & vids)<br>
- Access Internet streaming media (Boxee? XBMC? MythTV?)<br>
- Web browsing (news, weather, search)<br>
- POP/SMTP email (Thunderbird)<br>
- A wireless keyboard (with integrated trackball or trackpad)<br>
- A wireless remote (I have a Sony RM-AX4000 and a PHX01RN)<br>
- Phone integration (so I don't have to manually mute/pause the HTPC
when I get a call)<br>
- The HTPC truly deep-sleeps or shuts down when not in use.<br>
<br>
Recommendations?<br>
<br>
<br>
-BobC<br>
<br>
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