[mythtv-users] Who's going to be the first?

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Fri Sep 3 15:41:10 UTC 2010


On Friday, September 03, 2010 07:23:47 am digid myth wrote:
> I am going to order one, I currently do not have an apple TV, but this
> looks interesting.
> 
> I am a Unix geek from way back, anyone remember the 3B2, and NCR Towers? I
> have a linux server at the house that backs up all of our Mac's, does other
> server stuff and runs Myth which we enjoy. We use it to watch all or
> movies, and OTA recordings. That said, we are also an apple household.
> Multiple Mac's, ipods, iphones, ipad's etc. When you spend your day
> running down computer problems, it is nice to come home and not have to
> deal with Windows computers not working. The Mac's just work, and my
> family enjoys the tight integration of all the software with the apple
> devices. We all use iTunes to handle our music, and Myth for video. I have
> no plans to replace our MythTV setup with this thing, but it would be nice
> to stream music to it. For 100.00 it is just another toy, but it does have
> possibilities.
> 
> Don't knock the Apple products! Yes they cost more, but most good things in
> live do. Everyone that I know that has switched to a Mac loves it, and
> would not consider going back to a Microsoft world. I Love linux for my
> servers, and would not give that up, but for the workstation there is no
> other good solution in my mind.


Don't compare the "Microsoft Word" to anything, there is just not any reasonable comparison.

Apple does have good products, but installing Linux on my iBook was a great move IMHO, perhaps just because it gives me a 
consistent interface with all my machines. OS/X wastes too many cycles looking pretty IMHO, but then so does Compiz.

The topical question here is how best an AppleTV be integrated into a Myth system. The $99 price will be very attractive 
to many folks here (including me). If it can be made into a workable frontend it will be half the price of the Revo, which 
is probably the best off-the-shelf  solution today.

It's cheap enough that a lot of people will buy one and start playing, I am eagerly awaiting reports of how well it works. 
The big question to my mind is the graphics hardware - it obviously does not have the grunt to decode much of anything by 
CPU alone. Any frontend today must be able to play HD-PVR recordings, a non-trivial task without hardware assistance.

None of us have problems acquiring content, so the iTunes "buy (or rent) it from us" approach is probably not going to be 
popular with this group, but a $99 frontend that can play our content definitely will be.





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