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

[George Mogielnicki]

Some of the feature you mentioned are already included with this box and I
wanted HD from setup box (cable or satellite), that is a hard requirement.

Storage - I have 2TB on the NAS server also. I'm sure that if one digs
enough there would be a solution to provide a 2TB usb storage device to
this box (AoE perhaps), but I'm not sure if the receiver will handle it of
course. Even with my 750GB plugged in I have 77 Hrs of HD recording
avaliable. I'm not in a hurry.

Compression artefacts - once every 2hrs there is a flash of green on the
screen and audible charge. The only issues so far. Vendor is releasing
software updates quite often.

Asterisk,  I run this also, fantastic project. CID display is supported
but I did not test it.

I did not buy PVR, I bought HD Receiver (for MythTV build) which happens
to have PVR functionality build in.

George

> Like you mentioned already, the added functionality is unmatched.  I
currently use MythVideo, MythNews, MythMovies, MythMusic, MythBrowser
(with mythnews, of course), Mythweb (something DirecTV is just starting
to do), and Mythgames.  I use it with OTA HDTV on my Pioneer Kuro and I
must say, it's pretty much the only solution to tune to free HD and have
the DVR functionality.  The ability to do just about anything with a
Linux computer makes it so versatile and worth so much more than the
traditional buggy cable DVR.  I have 2.5 combined TB of storage, and the
raw mpeg-2 transports I can move/stream to any computer that I want.  No
commercial DVR solution can even come close to that much storage.  My
1080i is virtually free from compression artifacts, unlike it's unfree
cable bretheren.  My Super Mario 64 (and all other N64, PSX, Genesis,
SNES, NES, GAMEBOY ADVANCE, MAME, and gamegear game) is displayed in
1920x2046 (with a minor bit of cropping), and every texture is filtered
and enhanced.  I can stream my H.264 BD-Rips over my network and watch
1080p video flawlessly now that I've upgraded my frontend.  If I setup
asterisk, I would be able to integrate it with VOIP functionality for
things like video phone and callerid.  I currently have plans to write a
plugin with a POTS phone to understand CID and broadcast it on all the
frontends.  There is oh so much more than can be done with a mythtv
computer than any conventional production on the market right now.  I'm
surprised anybody buys DVR's.
>